Mobile Application Testing

1. Mobile Application Testing is the gate way to provide a high-quality mobile app
2. A quality test is done in various verticals; so, that the mobile app passes before they reach their target mobile devices or app stores, and become available for public.
3. It is mainly tested for its functionality, usability, and consistency
4. It ensures the app in the mobile devices is user friendly.
5. Mobile application testing can be done automatically or manually.
6. There are many tools used for automating the mobile application testing, but using the right tool at the right place is the most important
7. Nowadays most of the mobile phones are enriched with advanced features and applications to meet the needs of the end user; so, to make it an effective application, various testing process are involved in testing the mobile application

Installation Testing (Whether the user can install the application smoothly or not).

1. Basically, Mobile devices use two types of applications:
2.  Applications that automatically comes with mobile OS (while installing OS, it automatically gets installed),
3. Applications that we should install specially from the store to use the application.

1. Installation testing involves the process of testing an application’s installation and uninstallation process
2. It also includes testing whether the specific application can be updated properly without any interruption

Functional Testing

1. Functional testing is the most basic test performed on the functional behavior of the application to ensure that the application is working as per the defined requirements.

Key points for functional testing of the any mobile app:

1. Check out that all the functional flow of the application works as per the business logic.
2. A thorough testing should be done on the developed application in all major devices and versions for its functionality.
3. Make sure the application works properly, even if the memory is full
4. Be certain on the security of the data, If the application is integrated with any e-pay/payment gateway.
5. Check out whether the proper informative messages are displayed, If the application is forcefully stopped during page loading or navigating

Performance Testing

1. Mobile performance involves the client application, server and network performance so it is important to get hold on the performance scenarios in performance testing

1. Performance testing also involves testing other scenarios like low battery power due to heavy battery use, network out of coverage area/poor bandwidth/changing internet connection mode (2G, 3G, or WiFi) /changing broadband connection, transferring heavy file, etc.
2. Performance testing is mainly done to make sure that the device doesn’t freeze or crash, if a user performs same operation again and again

Interruption Testing

1. Interrupt Testing is used to check how the mobile application performs when an interrupt occurs

Mobile applications should be able to handle different interruptions for example

1. Incoming and Outgoing calls, SMS and MMS.
2. Low Battery Notification.
3. Data Cable Insertion and Removal.
4. Network Provider outage and recovery.
5. Device Power cycle.
6. Network Connection type: Application should easily run on Wi-Fi or 4G or 3G or 2G connections.
7. The app should work properly even if there is no SIM card in the device (provided it is independent of Mobile Service Network).
8. The app should function as expected in the Aero plane mode
9. SD Card Interaction: This factor can play a vital role in the mobile device.
10. App should provide an option to move the app to SD card and its functioning should also be proper.

Usability Testing

1. The most important factor that should be taken extra care of while developing a mobile application is its usability.
2. It should take place from the early stage of application development
3. The success and failure of any application depends on its User Interface.

Usability testing considers three main features and evaluates the application based on them

1. Efficiency
2. Effectiveness
3. Satisfaction

1. UI of the app should be as per device screen size and no text/control should be cutting off.
2. Text should be readable.
3. Progress indicator should be provided in case of app/page load. So, that the user is        aware that the app is fetching some data.
4. Button size should be proper and large enough that it should be easily clickable by the large fingertip, and spacing between 2 buttons should also be good enough.

Memory leakage Testing

1. Compared with the computer memory, the mobile devices have very limited memory; so, there is a high possibility for Memory leakage,
2. Memory leakage happens when a computer program or application is unable to manage the memory it is allocated and that results in poor performance of the application and the overall slowdown of the system.
3. As mobile devices have significant constraints of available memory, memory leakage testing is crucial for the proper functioning of an application

Example:

1. Keep the application running for ten minutes and observe if memory usage remains stable.

Security Testing

1. The purpose of security testing is to mainly test the application’s data and network security as per the given requirement/guideline.

Example:

• Verify that a session automatically gets expired if it remains inactive for more than 15 minutes.

Operational Testing:

• Operational testing’s main purpose is to make sure that the back-up and recovery process is working as per the requirement

Conclusion:

All the above methodologies involved in Mobile Application Testing are to ensure that the users trust the applications for mobile devices.

Summary:

With the help of these testing types, we make sure that the application is 99.9% tested and applications satisfy the user requirements.

Reference:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_application_testing