The Ultimate Guide to Mobile App Testing

It's dinner time and you don't want to cook? Order a delicious meal with just a click of a button in your food delivery app. Not a fan of waiting in line at the bank to make a simple transaction? Use a banking application. Or maybe you're not in the mood to spend time shopping in a mall? Save your time by using a shopping app to order the perfect outfit. We use our phones at work, at home, on the street, while we’re eating, in bed, and even in our cars. You might be reading this from a mobile device right now. The usage of mobile apps daily has become as important as our water or food. And with over 4.8 billion smartphone users worldwide and our growing dependence on mobile phones, it is critical to test your mobile app thoroughly. In this blog post, we will provide you with a comprehensive guide to mobile app testing. Let’s get started.

Mobile app testing and its importance

Mobile app testing is a process where we validate a mobile app for its functionality and usability before it is launched to production. Testing the mobile app helps us to determine if the app meets the expected technical and business requirements. Though mobile app testing can be challenging, it helps identify any bugs, or issues with functionality or design and optimizes performance for end users. Every test performed on the application (before being shipped to market) is crucial—here’s why:

UX (User experience). Thorough testing ensures a smooth app experience, intuitive design, and overall user satisfaction. This leads to better engagement and less frustration from the end users’ perspective. Imagine having an app that has unresponsive buttons, unaligned layouts, or frequent crashes—doesn’t look good, right?
Smooth performance. No user wants an app that is too slow, an app that drains the battery or slows down the mobile itself. Performance testing finds the bottlenecks in the application in various devices and OS versions, adapting the app to run smoothly and efficiently.
Security. Most apps contain sensitive user information, and none of them want their information to be leaked. Security testing helps prevent these problems by finding weak spots in the application itself, for a potential hack attack that will affect the reputation and lead to legal consequences.
Place on market. Finding bugs and fixing them early positions the app in the market fast, even with some small anomalies. This leads to a better market position among the competition.
Regulations. Testing the mobile app ensures it meets legal requirements, which is a must for many industries. If the app doesn’t comply with requirements it can affect several aspects of the product and company, leading to a bad reputation, fines, losing users, and legal action.

Mobile app usage statistics

62% of people uninstall an app if they experience mobile crashes, freezes, or errors. (AppSamurai)
50.6% of users tend to uninstall if your app takes too much space on the device's memory. (Risewings)
71% of users uninstall apps as a result of annoying push notifications popping up too frequently. (Dot Com Infoway)
The average smartphone owner uses 10 apps per day and 30 apps each month. (TechReport)

Types of mobile apps

Two QA engineers working on laptops and performing mobile app testing

Mobile apps are separated into the following three categories:

Mobile web apps

Mobile web apps are accessed via the internet browser and will adapt to whichever device you’re viewing them on. They’re not native to a particular system and don’t need to be downloaded or installed. These act like websites squeezed into a phone app. They work on any device, but you test them through the browser and might find compatibility issues across different platforms.

Native apps

Native applications are developed for a specific platform using the platform's native APIs. Therefore, these are performant and have full access to device capabilities. Think of native apps as smooth cars built for dedicated roads. They're fast, intuitive, and work best on their intended platforms (Android or iOS). You'll need to test them on different devices within each platform for optimal performance.

Hybrid apps

Hybrid app development means building a single app compatible with all mobile platforms, like Android, iOS, and Windows. Imagine these as cars that use both gas and electric engines. They’re quicker to build and more flexible, but they might not be as powerful as native apps. You'll need to test both the web and native aspects of the app for potential issues.

Types of mobile app testing

There are various types of mobile testing, each serving a specific purpose. Below, we outline the most common types of mobile testing along with definitions and examples:

Functional testing evaluates the core functionalities of a mobile app and tests if they are working as intended. Front-end testing focuses on the user interface, while back-end testing evaluates server-side functionality. Some examples of functional testing: touchscreen responsiveness, navigation between screens, and data validation.
Performance testing evaluates the speed, stability, and reliability of the app. It checks things like app loading times, battery usage, memory usage, and the ability to handle a large volume of users at once without crashing.
Security testing evaluates how well the app protects data and defends against cyber threats. Security testing is especially important for apps that handle sensitive user data or financial information. It focuses on data encryption, authorization and authentication, and prevention of malware infections.
Compatibility testing ensures the app functions properly on a variety of mobile devices and operating systems. It checks that the app is compatible with different screen sizes (small phones to large tablets), different mobile OS versions (newest and older), and different mobile brands (Apple, Samsung, Google, etc.)
Usability testing checks the user-friendliness of your mobile app in terms of intuitiveness, navigation, and usage. Identifying customer experience-related bugs is a mobile app usability testing example that helps you provide a satisfactory experience to the end users. For example, asking users to try to complete tasks like finding specific information, using specific features, or navigating the app.

In addition, there are more testing types that can be included in our process depending on the requirements such as: localization testing, interruption testing, payments testing, API testing, build testing, and stream testing—to name a few.

Test strategy for mobile app testing

The test strategy is used as a guide for mobile app testing that outlines the objectives, methods, resources, and schedules for upcoming test activities. It defines the main testing priorities and the overall approach on how to improve software quality within your development and deployment of the mobile application.

Most of the time, the test strategy is structured by senior test roles, such as Test Managers or QA Leads. They collaborate with stakeholders, including Business Analysts, Development Leads, and Project Managers. The main goal of the whole setup is to establish a proper path for the testing process, covering every aspect of the application that leads to the examination from defects.

You might be interested in: Cheat Sheet for an Effective Software QA Strategy

Step 1: Analyzing the requirements

The first and most important step in the mobile app testing process is Requirement Analysis. During this phase, we need to analyze and determine the requirements of the client. At the same time, we are doing the informal testing based on our skills and asking the client questions to form the whole structure. The requirement may be either functional or non-functional.

Step 2: Creating a test plan & strategy

The more detailed the planning and strategy is, the better the testing outcome. The planning process is performed based on the client requirement analysis. To create a test strategy and prepare a test plan document we have to conduct proper communication with the team members. Within this whole process, the team is ready to execute testing.

A test plan is a document that describes the scope of testing, test strategy, objectives, effort, schedule, and resources required.

Step 3: Choose the types of testing

Choose the right testing types that are required to test the mobile app. As we mentioned previously, we perform mobile app testing to ensure the functionality, usability, compatibility, performance, security of the app based on the requirements defined by the client. Each testing type and its conduct gives confidence and increases the validity of the mobile application.

Tip: Jump out of the regular testing types. Try tests with different network conditions and check if the mobile application meets accessibility requirements.

Step 4: Test design & test scenarios

After completing the previous steps, we then write test cases and prepare test documentation for the testing activities. The documentation itself covers all features and functionalities of the app that need to be tested. With this approach, we are ready to perform the tests and understand if we are on the right track to execute our planned strategy.

Tip: Collaborate early. Everyone in the team—and that means everyone from QAs and Devs to stakeholders and product owners—must be included in the testing process.

Step 5: Test execution: Manual vs. automated testing

Whether we choose manual or automated testing depends on the requirements, the test plan, test strategy, and test suites. Let’s compare the two:

	Manual testing	Automated testing
Pros	- Cost-effective in a short-term period - More flexible - Better simulation of user actions	- Cost-effective in the long-term - The running process is faster - Can be reused easily - Test results are easy to share
Cons	- Difficult to reuse - The running process is slow - Some cases can't be executed manually	- Automated tools may have limitations - Less efficient in defining user-friendliness or positive customer experience
When to use	- Exploratory testing: Mobile apps need human testing for this scenario. - Usability testing: It’s impossible to determine how user-friendly a mobile app is without manual testing	- Regression testing: Automated testing works well for regression testing because of frequent code changes - Repeated execution: Repetitive and drawn-out tasks lend themselves well to automated testing

In order to get the best results from the testing, a mix of both manual and automated testing will most likely be needed.

Device coverage

For the best outcome from our mobile app testing, we need to consider the device coverage within our testing process.

You might be interested in: How to Create a Device Matrix for Mobile Application Testing

When performing mobile app testing, you can choose between using real devices or virtual ones.

A real device is the physical hardware on which your software will run in production. This includes running the app on various devices with different operating systems, screen sizes, resolutions, and hardware configurations.
A virtual device is a software program on the machine that provides almost the same functionality as in the real device. Virtual devices are used to simulate the features of the application like on an actual device. Virtual devices are divided into simulators and emulators.

Differences between real and virtual devices are explained in the table below:

	Real Devices	Virtual Devices
Performance	It determines the performance of an app more accurately.	Results are not as accurate as they can't mimic every part.
Speed	Testing on real devices is much faster.	Testing on a virtual device is slower.
Cost	Purchasing a range of different devices is costly.	Virtual devices are cheaper, and in some cases, they are free to download on the internet.
Debugging	Debugging on a mobile device can be tricky.	Debugging on a virtual device is relatively easy.

Looking at the comparison above, the best use for end-to-end mobile app testing would be combining both types of devices, real and virtual ones. This approach will lead to better results than keeping the testing only on one type.

Final thoughts

Mobile app testing is a complex process that is an essential part of mobile app development. Any organization striving for a better place on the market needs and looking to gain a competitive advantage need to consider mobile app testing as one of the key factors to success.

By following a well-defined test strategy, choosing the right type of testing and the most appropriate devices, you can ensure the delivery of a high-quality product that offers a great user experience.

Do you have a mobile application and need end-to-end mobile app testing to make sure it works as intended? We can help. Contact us to learn more about our quality assurance services and expertise.