12 considerations when choosing mobile testing solution

By HP Software, India In the age where most business happens online, it is vital that your customers experience the best of online services when they use your application. Ever since the smart phone revolution, mobility and mobile apps have become the buzz words in e-commerce. The importance of great performing apps becomes all the more important when “73 percent of global CIOs believe that mobility will impact their business more than the Internet,” said HP India. There are a lot of reasons why a mobile app can fail and the prominent once being security lapses. About 48 percent of mobile apps are susceptible to unauthorized access and 77 percent of mobile apps are susceptible to information leakage. “Before you roll out a new app or a software upgrade, you want to be sure the app meets the expectations of your users, addressing the three layers of functional, performance, and security considerations.” [caption id=“attachment_2010043” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Reuters[/caption] It’s been found that when a mobile app fails: 25 percent of users abandon the mobile after just three seconds of delay; 48 percent of users are less likely to use the app again; and 34 percent will switch to a competitor and are less likely to return. So what does it take to test mobile applications? At its core, mobile application testing has the same basic requirements of traditional application testing. Test environments must accurately reflect real-world conditions, testing must be done under precisely repeatable conditions, testing should include “what if” and edge scenarios and testing must account for performance impacts on both users and infrastructure. Here are some of the key considerations to be kept in mind when choosing your mobile testing solution provider: #  Look for a mobile testing solution that gives you the option to use emulator for some tests and real devices for other tests-particularly those tests that require the highest levels of accuracy. # Whether you’re in a small business or a global enterprise, you need a mobile testing solution that enables remote access to a wide range of devices. Remote access gives you the flexibility to have your test devices in one place and your developers and testers in another. # With manual approaches, your quality-assurance (QA) team conducts each step in the testing process essentially by hand. With automated testing, the team leverages a script that runs through all of the same steps. # Mobile apps are subject to many network-driven variables that aren’t an issue with web-based apps. With mobile apps, network conditions such as jitter, latency, limited bandwidth, and packet loss must be taken into account when testing an app and validating the end-user experience. # There are all kinds of things happening on mobile devices that could affect the performance and functionality of an app. While users are interacting with your app, they might receive text messages, email, and phone calls. Their batteries might run low. They might open a new URL from within your app. These and other common interruptions can affect the performance and functionality of your app, so you have to test for them. Your mobile testing solution should give you the ability to simulate common user scenarios so you have a complete view of the impact on the end-user experience. # In mobile app testing, each element on a screen is treated as an object that the test tool recognises as part of the recording and playback. Testing tools use different methods to recognise these objects .It’s important to understand the differences in these methods when choosing a test solution. Some methods, while easier to implement, have accuracy implications, and other solutions have better accuracy but require a higher-level skill set. # Each of these areas of focus is important to the end-user experience, so you want to look for a test solution suite that supports all three. If you’re just getting started with mobile app testing, you might use a phased approach, beginning with mobile functional testing, moving into mobile performance testing, and finally incorporating security testing into your processes. Either way, regardless of the path you choose, you want to work with a vendor who can help you achieve all three layers of testing. # To increase the return on your mobile app testing investments, you want a solution that makes it easy to reuse test scripts. The ability to reuse test scripts across devices with the same OS will help you save time, save money, and accelerate time to market for your apps, while increasing your test coverage. # Native apps are written in the specific language of the mobile operating system (OS). Web apps are written in common web languages, such as HTML5 or Java. Hybrid apps are written in a combination of languages and leverage a software shell that allows users to tap into the native capabilities of the device, such as the camera or GPS, which pure web apps cannot do. Your mobile testing solution should be designed to handle all three types of apps. # The modern software development lifecycle encompasses an ecosystem of tools used by different players in the application delivery game. Especially in agile teams, which mobile teams tend to be, roles often overlap-developers run certain types of test and QA specialists sometimes will get involved in development activities. # In addition to integration with development tools, your mobile testing solution should have the capability to be integrated with your application lifecycle management (ALM) or agile project management tools. This broader integration enables all stakeholders in the application delivery process to share information, to see each other’s work, to assign tasks, to view test results, and to understand the status of the overall project. # To choose the right mobile testing solution for your organisation, you need more than technology. You need the expertise of mobile testing specialists who can help you explore your needs and identify the components of a testing solution that meets your specific requirements. What should you test? When should you test? What devices should you test on? When will you use automation? How can you get the broadest range of coverage on a limited budget? To fully explore questions like these, you need the help of seasoned testing specialists who have been down the same path many times before and who can provide guidance based on previous experiences with other organisations and knowledge of your specific industry or vertical. Access to this expertise will help you increase your return on investment (ROI) and give you the confidence that you can deliver the right user experience at the right time to the market, helping you stay ahead of the competition.