Launching a mobile application laden with critical bugs can render your app a flop!
According to a survey, 88% of users abandon apps due to bugs and glitches.
The average app loses 95% of its users in just 90 days.
In fact, 80% of users indicated that they would only attempt to use a problematic app three times or less.
Think back to when Pokémon Go and Apple MAPS faced difficulties in roll out, impacting their initial adoption rate immensely. Although launched to soaring popularity, they became a catastrophic failure of customer retention within days. Pokémon Go, for instance, saw revenue fall from US $16m to just $2m and saw daily downloads drop from 27m to barely 7,00,000 within 60 days. They were essentially broken products in many ways and the apps had constant glitches. If it can happen to Pokémon Go, it can happen to you, too.
The adoption of agile and DevOps, as well as technologies like AI, Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain are radically changing testing. It therefore becomes necessary to debunk some common myths surrounding mobile application testing. Ignoring the same can result in consequences – from a complicated app development process, and a waste of money to loss of customers. This list is in no way exhaustive because it’s a massive topic and with new technologies, new misconceptions and myths are only natural.
Well, not really. Testing on emulators alone can be a huge risk! While emulators are a great place to start app testing and are good for UI testing or initial quality assurance, it falls short of giving developers the full picture of an app’s performance. Since emulators don’t contain any hardware like chipsets, memory cards, and others, it doesn’t provide much valuable information to improve app quality in the long run. Thus, it is advisable to perform tests on real devices early and often.
Of course, first impressions really matter, but success requires more than that. Therefore, just testing the visual design elements of your application will not suffice. App features need to be tested rigorously for an overall better user experience. A good design attracts the eye and gives an app, considerable competitive advantage, but will that be sufficient if app feature requirements are simply not met? It must be backed by a solid foundation of functionality that addresses the user’s problem.
Enterprise mobile apps are mission-critical, scalable, and complex applications used by businesses to solve problems, support decision-making, and automate business processes. As a result, testing a mobile app, even if it is for internal use, becomes critical to ensure whether it works as planned to enhance efficiency and productivity. Thus, enterprise apps must be comprehensively tested through usability testing, functionality testing, and performance testing before deployment.
Testing is a process, not just a phase! Being an important part of the software development cycle (SDLC), testing cannot be segregated as a single unit or phase. Rather, it should start early to capture and eliminate defects during requirement gathering and the design phases in SDLC. Not only are bugs found at the later stages of SDLC costlier to fix than defects identified in early-stage, but testing in the initial stages also helps reduce the number of defects and ultimately reduces the cost. Thus, testing should be involved in all phases of SDLC and start from the beginning of a project.
Exploratory testing is testing on the fly and a popular testing technique to identify critical bugs quickly and early during the development stage. Yet only 29% of mobile developers do exploratory testing. Since exploratory testing is all about discovery, investigation, and learning, it calls for an innovative approach and individual thought process. So, for exploratory testing to be truly effective, testers must be familiar with the application, understand the typical behavior of the target user, and learn through the cycle of trial and error. Unlike scripted testing, exploratory testing does not have test cases, and therefore exposes you to the risk of missing a key feature through oversight. Thus, you should define the scope of exploratory testing. Also, allow a large enough window of time and always match it with scripted testing ensuring the all-important features and workflows to work as expected.
Mobile app functionality testing tests the functionality of the app, whether it is working as expected. Performance testing tests how much load the software can tolerate. Thus, while functional testing aims to consistently ensure functional correctness and establish the confidence that the app does what it is supposed to do, performance testing is done with the intent of determining how quickly a product handles a variety of events, actions, or functions. Both performance and functionality testing are critical to ensure the success of the app.
Creating an in-house testing infrastructure and device management is complicated. Android and iOS emulators need to be installed correctly and maintained regularly. Similarly, device management is an activity that requires a significant investment of time, money, and resources to constantly update with the latest OS versions and applications. Eventually, considering the several issues related to security, benefits, and costs, you may end up spending more money on something that does not fully meet your requirement. Choosing cloud solutions for both iOS and Android emulators is a better option and offers a higher ROI.
Mobile application testing is more complex than ever before. With new technologies like AI (Artificial Intelligence), 5G, eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband) and more on the horizon, you need trusted experts for mobile app development to stay ahead of the competition. As a leading mobile app development company, we have experienced testers who address your needs with tailored solutions and a focus on quality. So if you’re looking for mobility solutions, contact us now!
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