11 Tips For Testing Mobile Application Efficiently

Almost 5 million mobile apps are available in Apple App Store and Google Play Store and it continuously growing. With the increasing number of apps it’s most common practice to test mobile application in order to deliver the stable app to market.

User uninstall the apps after downloading is due to user experience issues, crashes, phone hangs, or quickly loses its charge. Some delete the app right after installation and some of them write a bad review.

With that in mind, here are 11 testing tips you should consider before you publish your app to the Market:

Tip # 1. Pay Attention to the Different Orientations of the Device

If the application supports portrait and landscape modes, then you should pay special attention to changing the orientation of the screen. They can lead to application failure, memory leaks and other failures.

Tip # 2. Pay attention to the different screen sizes, platform and OS version

Of course, it is impossible to replace the present software and hardware. But for lack of funds for the purchase of an expensive or rare device, software emulators are suitable to check the behavior of application in different screen sizes, platform and OS version. In this case, we have no choice but to use the emulator for testing. It should be noted that Android and iOS emulators are mainly designed for native applications.

Tip # 3. Perform app testing with different speeds of internet

The Internet speed have different impacts of experience while using an app. A user connected to a slow cellular network might face data loss of apps that have rich media content. Make sure your testing includes both slow connections and fast ones to check the experience at any speed.

For example: If some features of your app perform best over a Wi-Fi connection, you might want to build in an alert to the user to let them know they are on a slow connection so that they will understand that a faster connection provides the best experience.

Tip # 4. Check what happens when you lose an Internet connection

Sometimes we have no Wi-Fi and also cellular signals drop. In this scenario, tester should ensure there’s no problems when this happens. The app must return a message to the user explaining what happened. For example: The user is signing up in the app and filled all the required fields but when they tap “Save,” the Internet connection is broken. If the app can’t perform the transaction then friendly message should appear to the user explaining that the connection has been lost.

Tip # 5. Include battery consumption testing of the application

Now a day’s battery life is one of the most important things to consider when installing the application in smartphone. With the wide range of phones, you’ll probably need to charge them every day.

However, if you like streaming music and surfing the web during the day then your battery drain more quickly than expected. So it’s important to include battery consumption testing of the application. iOS 9 and later versions comes with a feature that lists all the installed apps on your phone and the battery consumption of each of them. For Android apps, there are so many tools available for battery consumption e.g. GSam etc.

Tip #6. Test how your app behaves with other phone features

Keep in mind that a mobile phone is still a phone. Make sure how the app works when receive phone calls and other system notifications. Also make sure that your app doesn’t create problems for any other applications and when the phone is running in the background.

Tip # 7. Test your application with maximum data

Before running the application, make sure that the application memory is full. This will help you check the speed of the operations, as well as the ability of the application to save and restore its state (for example, where we will return, if the application has been minimized, whether all previously running services and so on will work).

Tip # 8. Use the debug menus to simplify the testing process

It is very useful to have a debug application menu with functions that will make life easier for developers and testers. Such functions may include the following:

• Check the responses from the server
• Configure specific settings for the server
• Cleaning sessions
• Cache cleaning etc

For this purpose, you can also enable Developers tools on both Android and iOS devices. A particularly wide range of features is provided for Android and iOS to displaying data on the operation of the processor and RAM

Tip # 9. Check how the data is stored on the device

Mobile apps are increasing where users are, and similarly hackers are also increasing to steal sensitive information from the application. The apps are more vulnerable if the data is stored locally on device (whether it’s permanently or temporary stored). Leaky applications can release user’s data without knowing it.

With a solid mobile security strategy you can quickly respond the vulnerability and bugs. In this way your app will be a safe in the future. Organizations that allow employees to use BYOD can open up the network to hacking vulnerabilities and makes difficult to regulate access to data on their systems (for example, sometimes database of the application is not encrypted and anyone who get the device can view the content of others user easily through database).

Tip # 10. Think out of the Box – Try to execute more complex and unconventional test scenarios

Use the test “monkeys” to detect failures and failures in work, as well as freezes of the mobile application. Such utilities simulate the simplest actions of users, such as, clicking on the button with the text “OK” or taking screenshots. After all, when testing these simple actions take a lot of time and attention. And so you will get more time to study complex functional tests.

Tip # 11. Understand your Audience

Last but the most important one. Keep in mind that your app is for humans and is not for Robots, so test your application from end user’s perspective and understand your target audience well before you publish your app. Sometimes users are also concerned about how the data is stored on your app so doing a security check about how your app data is stored would be a good option as well.

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