Mobile app testing is just as vital as developing an application. On it, relies the success and failure of the app. This is important because if you focus on rushing the testing stage, chances are that your app will be a failure in the app market. Unfortunately, many developers are in a rush to finish developing the app on time and therefore, taking the shortcut method to test an app is not surprising. This is where they fail to identify many loopholes in the app, which may completely ruin the application in future. It is important to understand that testing a mobile app is not child’s play. It involves several rounds of iteration to test all the features and functionalities, and scrutinizing the same activities over and over again until the desired result is achieved.
As you perform the critical process of mobile app testing, here are these common mistakes that you tend to do. Try avoiding these mistakes to make the phase smoother and ensure highest standards of quality result.
- UI/UX given more emphasis than functionalities
To deliver the best user experience to end users, app testers often tend to forget about the features provided by the application, and focus more on UI/UX. Looks and user experience does matter, but what about the usability perspective? Why would someone download your app if it does not fulfill their purpose or if the features are not working properly? A good app is all about delivering what users get from it and not only what they see in it. Therefore, a more balanced approach should be followed when it comes to testing UI/UX as well as the features or usability of the app.
- Testing an app without an in-depth knowledge of it
This is one of the biggest mistakes that most app testers do. They have the responsibility of testing an app that they have never heard of and they tend to quickly test some its features, UI and UX and submit report. However, that is not how mobile app testing is done. The tester should have in-depth knowledge of the app – its functional requirements, features and business logic. This way a tester will cover all functionalities and user flows in the app, and make sure it performs optimally and as per core business requirements.
- You are testing a mobile app like a web
The world of website development is slow and static, and the concept does not apply to the highly dynamic and evolving mobile world. In web development, testing on only a few browsers is enough. However, if you do so for mobile apps, you would cover roughly 15% of the market. Staggering, right? There is more. Mobile applications need to be updated every month. On the contrary, a web browser updates every year; so, you are fine web testing in the same environment. But if you do that in mobile, you would be testing for an old device after only a few months. Therefore, taking the web approach for mobile app testing is wrong.
- Trying to test everything
It is impossible to test a mobile app against every device, location, Operating System or network, and that is not surprising. However, to know how your customers would use your app, it is vital to have objective visibility of what you are testing and how well it can target the customers. Google Analytics and backend logs can help to create a clear picture of customer behavior. Suppose if you are handling 50 test cases and you have to test on 10 different devices on 5 different network environments, there are innumerable executions you have to make. But that is impossible.
