In a mobile-first world, producing quality apps, websites, and more for mobile devices is extremely important. While testing is key to producing quality digital products, there are a number of challenges that make mobile testing difficult. Learn more about these challenges as well as the solutions to overcome them.
What is Mobile Testing?
As its name implies, mobile testing is a quality assurance assessment of a digital product using a mobile (smartphone or tablet) device. Apps or websites specifically developed for these devices can be tested using a smartphone or tablet. Although mobile testing can be very straightforward, that does no mean it is without its challenges.
What are the challenges?
There are number of challenges that QA teams face when executing tests on mobile devices. Here are some them:
Fragmentation
Simply put, the diversity of mobile market is as rich as many the diversity of books in any major metropolitan library. Why is there so much diversity? The answer is choice.
With a plethora of manufacturers, devices, models, and operating systems versions on the market, the success of your apps and websites may come down to how well they work across an infinite combination of configurations.
As a result, applications need to be designed to function across an enormous amount of configurations. But why is this important?
Well, just because the performance of an app or its UX can differ not only across different models of the same device, but also the various OS versions that users may be using. Thus, it is imperative to test across many different configurations to cover the risks associated with fragmentation.
Source: Statcounter May 2018
Screen size
Despite how well your digital product may function, it absolutely still needs to be visually appealing to attract and maintain the attention of your users. While developers work to meet these requirements, the diversity in screen sizes amongst the smartphones and tablets on the market can pose challenges when it comes to mobile testing.
Source: OpenSignal - Screen Size Diversity
Network conditions
In the real world, mobile apps and websites are used on a variety of mobile data networks including edge, 2G, 3G, 4G, LTE, and on wifi networks too. Signal strength and the speed of network can have an impact on the performance of the apps and websites, which in turn can affect KPIs like churn rate and conversion rate.
Source: http://linkbun.ch/07aoz
More importantly, these network conditions can change as people move from one place to another. Ensuring that the application performs well across various conditions is essential. Nonetheless, simulating a variety of network conditions can be challenging.
Type of application
Since mobile applications can and are built in different ways, they also needed to be tested in different ways. Whether the application is built as a native app, web app, or hybrid app, the QA test needs to designed to take this into account.
Geolocation features
With both apps and websites using geolocation features, testing these features can be difficult due to the fact that these tests need to executed in a specific place. Sending your QA team across the city, country, or abroad to test these features is expensive and difficult.
How to Overcome these Challenges?
Despite the challenges associated with mobile testing, StarDust has helped many overcome these challenges thanks to our experienced QA teams and testing resources.
To account for the risks associated with fragmentation, we rely on our vast library of real-testing devices. Containing over 3,000 configurations, our library makes it possible to test the performance, user experience, and much more of your mobile applications, mobile websites, and IoT’s in real-world conditions that cannot be replicated using emulators or the cloud.
Additionally, with testing labs in Europe and North America, we can to test your digital product across several data network conditions including edge, 2G, 3G, 4G, and wifi networks to ensure their performance and feel over a variety of conditions.
Using our crowdtesting community comprised of over 2,000 testers in over 60 countries, we have the ability to launch your testing campaign in the right places, on the different devices used by your target audience, and across relevant network conditions to assess not only the quality and performance of geolocation features but much more in several languages.
