Usability Testing on Mobile App

So let’s commence this discussion with a query. What do phone consumers spend most of their time on? On mobile apps? Yes, you read that correctly. A recent study shows that phone users in the US spend 86% of their mobile usage time solely on interacting with mobile applications.

Every respected company already has an app or is planning to design it. So it has now become quintessential to ensure the good usability of the newly developed software before dreaming about million revenue.

Although when it comes to “Quality Assurance”, Mobile Applications present some unique challenges and are of utmost importance to the mobile app market. Compared to earlier types of technologies, with mobile products, there is a big focus on 24/7 connection, comprehensive end-user accommodation, and versatile use of a mobile app or product.

This post will tell you the importance of Usability Testing of Mobile Applications. By the end of the article, you should have a better understanding that how USABILITY TESTING can be different and important in these different forms of application i.e. Native Apps v/s Hybrid Apps. I have listed down some of the many advantages of applying Usability Testing on Mobile projects.

1.   Usability leads you to Good UX

Good usability products make users feel more convenient, quick, and comfortable. It also reduces wrong operations made by users. It will make the customers and users happy, and consequently, it will improve the user experience design of the product.

By way of illustration, there is an app that crashes on launching when it found NO INTERNET CONNECTION. Some more important cases that cover during Usability Testing in early stages of Product development check the behavior of application when there is Low Battery or Switching Internet Connectivity.

Hmmm another question comes to mind while writing all the important scenarios to check how will the application behaves when suddenly user gets an incoming call during the using of application??? Do you know??

Well in this case, the application screen should get blocked when any external feature comes over the application.

This will create a fuss for users as they don’t know why the application is crashing??

So by usability testing, the tester can improve this flow and can make a good UX by displaying any Error message. As Simple as Pie!

2.   Key to Reaching your user’s Heart

Usability testing checks if the application meets the standards and objectives. By practicing usability testing for your mobile application, you can get to know the following things about users.

• Whether they ride through the course of actions;
• Whether they leave or complete a task successfully;
• Do they read the pop-up messages?
• How long does it take for them to complete a task?
• Do they have a seamless browsing experience?
• Do they encounter any bugs/issues while completing a task?
• Know about their preferences;
• Which data type they are using in fields? Because some time our application crashes or garbage data is created if the user adds special characters (<,? &) in label, text type fields. In Usability testing of mobile our goal is to identify these type of usability problems.

3.   Validate your prototype – Stop Talking, Start Sketching!

Some companies recommend creating actual prototypes of mobile applications on paper, with analog simulations, and testing them on audiences before they are created and get functional. Testing at the prototyping stage allows them to find issues and bugs early and fix them instantly. This way, we can release a more polished version of your application.

4.   Mind Map for UI Testing checklist

Once the prototype is created. QA should prepare test cases with a UI point of view, it helps the team to get the detailed requirement of each element from the client, also help us to find issues and bugs of application flows early on prototype level. By doing and following this simple exercise, many negative cases of flows were found initially and can be fixed or handled without creating a major blunder in the last stages of application.

5.   Identify the navigation and other complex flow issues

With the help of Usability testing, the tester ensures the flow of the application remains consistent and intuitive throughout. A user should not be stuck at any point, or no navigation should be unclear to them. Application should be user-friendly with respect to navigation and other things to make it simpler for the new users as a QA suggested client to show coach marks, instruction, onboarding screens, or training video option so the major areas or complex areas covered with training or instruction.

6.   Untangle Small Issues

When we get a kick-off for any project, we’re focused on the bigger picture of the application, it’s only natural that we might miss out on some small yet critical usability issues. So as a Tester and Quality Assurance engineer of the team, your role should be to point out the problems like design inconsistencies, unclear UX copies, technical glitches like load-time, and other similar small-scale usability issues at the early stages of the project development.

So usability testing unveils these little issues that fall through the cracks and saves you a ton of trouble later.

A little pro tip for you: Instead of delaying them for the final stages tackle these problems after every testing sprint.

 OUR PRACTICE AT FOLIO3

As we Folio3 QAs are well aware of the importance of Usability Testing in the testing phase so we conduct this Usability Testing in our all projects in a very smooth manner.

We implemented Usability Testing from the beginning of the project. From testing the prototype of the application to maintaining the customer’s requirements; our first approach is to apply usability testing. Usability Testing helps you to stay on track, otherwise, by constant feedback and to-and-fro fixing of small changes might lead you to be distracted from the track.

By applying Usability Testing in the development of mobile applications development on the early stages we save a ton of time that will cause trouble later. Fixing small issues early can save you from big trouble in the future!

Happy Testing!