Mobile testing is the method by which apps designed for modern handheld devices are analyzed to check their functionality, user experience, and performance. In this article, we will explore the importance of mobile testing, offer guidance on starting with mobile testing, review various tools for testing mobile apps, and provide an overview of how to utilize those tools.
Table of Contents
What Is Mobile Testing?
Mobile testing can either be done manually or automatically. For this type of testing to be successful, developers need to test applications across various screen resolutions, multiple operating systems, and different network bandwidths.
This ensures that, when the software is eventually made accessible to the general public, it will perform seamlessly across a wide range of operating systems.
Types Of Mobile Application Testing
There are numerous approaches to testing mobile applications. There are many testing methods for mobile applications. Listed below are various types of tests that you can conduct:
Mobile Web App Testing
Mobile web app testing refers to evaluating a web application developed for usage on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. It aims to ensure that the app is compatible in different ways.
This includes whether it can work with different mobile devices, operating systems, and screen sizes. This often involves checking the app’s functionality, performance, interoperability, and usability on various mobile devices and operating systems.
Native App Testing
Native app testing assesses an application designed for a specific device operating system, such as iOS or Android. In contrast to web applications accessed through a web browser, native apps are often built to take advantage of a particular mobile device’s capabilities and functions.
Typically, native testing requires frameworks and tools designed specifically for a particular platform.
Hybrid App Testing
Testing a mobile application that contains components of both native and web apps is known as hybrid app testing. A hybrid app is often written using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. A hybrid app is wrapped behind a native wrapper, enabling it to be installed and executed on a mobile device like a native app.
Integrating the native wrapper with the device’s OS and hardware is a crucial feature of hybrid app testing. Testing the app’s usability and user experience is also essential to verify that it is intuitive and easy to use on different devices.
How Is Mobile Testing Different From Web Testing?
Web apps are software programs on web servers and can be accessed through a web browser. These applications are built with standard techniques such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and they can be accessed through various browsers such as Chrome and Firefox.
Web apps and mobile apps are developed in remarkably different ways. Moreover, how users engage with them varies. An example would be that touchscreen mobile users employ motions such as scrolling and pinching to zoom.
Web application testing seeks to verify that web pages are fully functioning and bug-free across all platforms and browsers. Mobile app testing, in contrast, aims to uncover any compatibility problems or defects for the native or hybrid mobile app across various Android and iOS devices.
Web application testing aims to deploy apps that provide a consistent user experience across various browsers. It also strives to ensure that internet applications continue to function flawlessly regardless of the platform used to access them.
Web apps are software programs hosted on web servers and accessed via a web browser. These applications are created keeping UI/UX and usability in mind. Testing also authenticates the application’s connection to the phone’s main hardware peripherals (GPS, Bluetooth, etc).
Existing websites must also be evaluated for all devices compatibility as part of Web application testing. However, in mobile testing, you must install the application from the relevant app store (Play store or App store) on the device.
How Are Mobile Testing And Web Testing Similar?
Despite the differences between mobile testing applications and web applications, there are still some tests that both types of applications share. For instance, testing is necessary for both functionality and performance. Others include change-related issues, usability, compliance, and restoration. Accreditation testing is also similar for both.
Tools For Mobile Application Testing
There is a wide variety of mobile app testing tools available, and many businesses worldwide make use of them. Some of these tools are as follows:
Kobiton
Kobiton is a brilliant testing platform for manual and automated testing. With Kobiton’s scriptless solution, you can execute functionality, efficiency, and visual tests quickly and effortlessly.
The most helpful approach for simulating the user experience is checking your application on many devices. However, you may lack the budget fund to buy hundreds of test devices or the time to test across each mobile device. Kobiton enables cloud-based testing on a farm of over 360+ actual Android and IOS devices. Additionally, you can carry out testing on your own devices.
Perfecto
Perfecto is a cloud-based testing service that automates code-based and code-free application testing. It is among the most effective tools for detecting any bug, providing comprehensive data from dashboards, videos, heatmaps, images, and crash reports across various devices.
Perfecto integrates with many IDEs, continuous integration platforms, and test automation platforms.
Appium
Appium is one of the top mobile application testing solutions many professional testers use. It is an excellent tool for testing mobile and web apps and works amazingly well with hybrid applications. Appium works on both IOS and Android, so there is no need for continuously changing code.
Additionally, Appium optimizes the overall performance of applications by automated functional testing.
Conclusion
The demand for software testing is increasing in light of the rapid pace of technological advancement. However, as mobile internet usage continues to rise, the importance of the quality and performance of mobile applications has never been higher. Understanding the sorts of tests you must perform and conduct them with the most effective tools will allow you to release your mobile applications faster and with an exceptional user experience.
DEHA Vietnam has provided various software testing services to global and local clients with diverse app requirements. With the prospect of speedier delivery cycles, we guarantee quality testing. Our experts work on efficient testing techniques that positively impact the mobile testing process.
Get in touch with us for a free consultation!
