Learn Mobile application testing in 10 minutes.

Can you imagine a day without mobile phones? Mobile phones have become an integral part of our daily lives. Initially, only Symbian phones were available in the market. After which, came the iPhone , Windows 6, Blackberry  and Android 1.5 phones which took over the market . Recently OS has been updated in iPhone 5 with iOS 6, Android 4 +, Windows 8 and Blackberry 7 + OS. This was followed by Pad1, 2, 3, iPad mini, Galaxy Tabs, Nexus, Kindle Fire, Xoom, BlackBerry playbooks and Android tabs to name just a few.

 

What is mobile application testing ?

Mobile application testing is the process of testing the functionality, usability and consistency of an application for hand-held mobile devices, from pre-installed or can-be-installed mobile application software platforms like iTunes, Google Play, etc.

Why is Mobile Application Testing Necessary

With so many mobile applications in the market today, it is important that providers ensure that the quality of their apps is high in order not to lose out to competition. The quality of the apps brought out can make or break the product or business completely. With competition getting hotter by the day, the pressure to build, test and launch apps has never been greater. Companies need to test their apps across models, carriers, OS, browsers and location. It is a job that should be performed by experienced mobile application testers. Testing ensures that companies streamline their testing, save time and money and deliver great user experience through their mobile channels.

The reasons why mobile application testing is required :

1. Many types of mobile devices
2. Different types of mobile platforms/operating systems  from various companies
3. Different mobile carriers
4. Many types of mobile screens

Type of Mobile Applications

Native Application: A native application (native app) is an application program that has been developed for use on a particular mobile device i.e smartphones or tablets. It is installed directly onto the device or acquire these apps through an online store or marketplace such as iPhone on  App Store or Androids on Google Play. Native Apps divided into pre-installed applications and installable applications.

Browser Based Mobile Application (Mobile Web) : Applications which we can acess through the mobile browser by hitting the url of the web. This type of application includes HTML 5 also.  Example – m.qburst.com, www.google.com, m.redbus.in, etc

Types of mobile application testing

1. Functional Testing
2. User Interface Testing
3. Usability Testing
4. Performance Testing
5. Stress Testing
6. Compatibility Testing
7. Interruption Testing

General testing scenarios in mobile application testing

• Connectivity testing- Identify the network connection. 3G/Wifi/Edge
• Compatibility testing- Check the application with different OS and devices
• Cross platform testing -Identify the OS and also identify if the device has any cross platform OS installed. Example- 3Gs phone with 4 iOS
• Orientation testing- Test the Application with landscape and portrait mode
• Interruption testing- Test the application with following interruption
• Incoming call
• Receiving incoming call
• Receiving message
• Device shutdown
• Remove battery
• Camera activated
• Lose network connectivity and then regain it
• Installation / Un-installation
• Test the application with/without network connection
• Check whether proper error/success messages are displayed under the following scenarios
• Network connection not available
• Weak signal or unable to complete the task
• Posts to any social media network or send email
• Navigation testing- Check the navigation of the application. User should not get stuck anywhere within the application
• Web service testing
• Identify the web service language
• Identify the web server location (for checking time zones and so on)
• Idle testing – Test the application in phone’s idle mode
• Share/Post testing – Try to send/post the email/post/comment without configuring Gmail/FB/Twitter account. Try the same after configuring the accounts too
• Volume testing – Test the application with large amounts of data
• Stress Testing – Test the application continuously over sufficiently long periods of time
• Load Testing – Check the application with load (web services). Various tools are available online for serving this purpose
• Sync testing – Check the application in Sync intervals
• Usability Testing – Testing usability aspects of mobile application
• Universal application in testing – Testing same build in different devices such us tablets and phones
• Simulator testing – Test the app in both simulator and device
• Performance testing – Check application performance and phone memory using performance test tool, memory leak tool etc. from Xcode
• GPS testing – Set up mock GPS for GPS related functionalities
• Monitoring battery consumption –  Check battery consumption over long term usage in background/foreground applications
• Application side effects – Ensure that installation of a new app does not damage already existing applications or the device itself
• Security – Ensure security of the application

Some Challenges in Mobile Application Testing

Today, mobile applications deliver complex functionalities on different platforms that have limited resources for computing. Mobile applications can either be standalone applications or web based mobile applications.

Screen Size – Screen size is one of the biggest limitations for mobile devices. The screen size varies from 128 X 128 to 800 X 480. Smaller screens have a portrait orientation and larger screens have a landscape orientation. There are than phones that can change their orientation – meaning they are capable of working in both landscape and portrait modes. 240 x 320 is the overall dominant screen size so far. Small screen resolutions tend to makes web pages almost illegible.

Display Resolutions – Different mobiles have different resolutions. A low resolution can degrade the quality of multimedia displayed on the screen of mobile device.

Processing capability  - Limitations in processing speed and memory size of mobile devices is a major issue faced during testing. Phones sometimes allow only a single active process in them. Your applications may fail if something like opera-mini is running in the background and you are trying to communicate out.

Diversified platform and devices – An application might work in one phone model and may not in the very next model from the same company. Just because you’ve tested in one phone model does not mean it will work on other available models. The jar size limits on these phone models can vary. Some popular models don’t really allow big downloads. Space is always at a premium so you will have to be at a constant lookout for the download size of your application and flag it when it increases.

Type of  content – Content delivery bothers both mobile user and carrier. For example, when page size is large, the device will not be able to handle it. Page should be cropped or re-sized and delivered without losing relevant information. The page can also be divided into fragments and displayed along multiple pages. Scrolling to read documents or web page will not be user friendly.

Connectivity – Network connectivity largely decides the data download time and also the quality of streaming media. Slow and unreliable wireless network connection with low bandwidth is a common hindrance for mobile applications. Carrier or device should be GPRS, Edge, 3G or 4G compatible.

Data Input Methods – Mobile devices come in two flavors – soft keyboards/touch screens and physical keyboards. Small buttons and labels limit the user’s effectiveness and efficiency in entering data. This results in slowing down the input speeds and increasing the chances of error.

Device screen flip capabilities – Page layout or content will change when user access page in different screen modes.

  Usability factors - User friendliness, self explanatory features, browser compatibility, help, etc

Tools Available for testing

Along with manual testing, we need to think about automation testing in mobile application. Since mobile testing is a recent scenario, very few automation tools are currently available. However,  many more automation tools are expected to appear in the market.  Some of the popular tools currently available in the market are EggPlant,  Phonemonkey and Selenium- Robotium.

Here are some automation tools available for mobile apps testing:-

• TestComplete
• Test Quest
• Robotium
• VNC
• Sikuli
• Deviceanywhere
• Keynote
• FoneMonkey (iPhone)
• Eggplant
• TestiPhone( For iPhone Mobile Web)
• IBM® Rational® Performance Tester (RPT)
• 3P Mobile
• Expertest
• Mobile Interactive Testing Environment (MITE) for  Mobile Web app
• Utest

Simulators and Remote Device Access (RDA) Services

Due to the lack of device shortage, a lot of simulators are available for testing. It represents more of the end-user scenario, which makes the use of these simulators important.

We need not purchase a new device with every new update or new device launch. This is where simulators become reliable. RDA’s are good solutions for application testing.

Some popular RDA Services are:

• Device Anywhere (Featured)
• Perfecto Mobile (Featured)
• Nokia RDA (Free, For Symbian Phones)

Advantages

• User can select different carriers  e.g.  Verizon, T-Mobile, AT & T.
• RDAs are more reliable than simulators as they are real devices.
• Some RDA Service have automation capabilities (Device anywhere)

Disadvantages

• Long time for actions
• High cost
• Lack availability of RDA’s

Online Simulators for mobile web

iPad Simulators

• Alexw.me
• iPadPeek.com
• iPad-emulator.org

iPhone Simulators

• TestiPhone.com
• InteractiveiPhone.com
• iPhone-Emulator.org
• iPhone4Simulator.com
• Transmog.net
• iPhoneTester.com (use safari for better results)

General Mobile based Opera Mini Browser Simulator

• Opera Mini Simulator (not specifically for an iPhone or iPad)

Just like personal computer and internet, mobile devices have become a “game changer” in this technical era. This article attempts to focus on certain aspects of mobile application testing, which is a must follow scenario in Mobile application development process.

Source - http://blog.qburst.com/2013/01/mobile-application-testing/