4 Most Crucial Mobile App Testing Challenges for the Developers to Overcome
In this article, we will see some of the common mobile app testing challenges.
It is an unflinching priority for every developer to launch the perfectly designed app with optimum performance and business conversion attributes and cannot compromise on this. This indomitable focus on quality can only lead to a more effective testing strategy. Yes, this is why leading app development companies put so much money, efforts, manpower, and resources on app testing. Check this free app development cost calculator to estimate the cost of your app development.
Here is the complete Mobile App Testing guide for you.Â
But despite all the efforts and the resources put behind app testing, app testing for all apps equally doesn’t yield the same level of success. App testing often needs to handle different devices, OS platforms, and their ever-evolving variations, automation testing difficulties, and many other challenges. Moreover, there have been different approaches to app testing, including continuous testing of DevOps projects, split testing of Agile development, and MVP app testing to ensure building a basic high-performance app. On top of all these, there is a multitude of testing tools in the market, and all are not equally efficient, and several of them are counterproductive. So choosing the right mobile app testing tool is a challenge as well.
One of the best cloud-based mobile app testing platforms is Kobiton.
Kobiton is a cloud-based mobile app testing platform allows teams to quickly and easily run manual and automated tests against real Android and iOS devices. It offers the most comprehensive platform encompassing everything an organization would need to perform tests on real-devices from device availability to managing in-house devices to scriptless test automation and continuous testing.
When it comes to mobile app testing, many companies just show the lack of devices as a key challenge while other points towards the absence of the right tools, and there are still others who consider a lack of resources as the main pulling factor. Considering all of these, here we are going to explain some of the key challenges that mobile app projects need to face in regard to app testing.
Key Challenges of Mobile Application Testing
Here are some of the common challenges faced during mobile app testing:
#1. The Fragmented Ecosystem of Devices, Platforms, and OS Versions
Let’s take a look at the maze of mobile platforms, devices, and OS versions that create too many different testing fields for the app testers. There are two major platforms, such as iOS and Android. Now each of these platforms is segregated into a variety of devices ranging across features and capabilities.
On top of that, each of these two platforms boasts of several OS versions. Now for testing an app on Android, you need to pick from many devices and choose the compatible OS versions running for each device. So, the testing options are quite diverse, and it is hard to test your apps across all devices running the compatible OS versions.
There are various time-tested approaches to solve these challenges to deal with the maze of OS and devices. One of the key approaches is detecting the issues with emulators and replacing emulators with real devices while keeping a limit on supporting devices and OS versions to a minimum. Often it is found that supporting the latest flagships and the latest OS versions are easier than supporting backdated devices and OS versions.
#2. Understanding What Your Audience Needs
Most testing strategies mostly rely on an app’s key performance parameters that are mostly going to be the same for the vast majority of apps across the niches. In contrast, every app as a solution caters to specific audience needs and problems, and hence the testing should focus on whether the app actually helps users effectively or not. This is why the testing team must be aligned with the user experience expectations when evaluating an app and should use tools and strategies accordingly.
One of the greatest challenges for the app testers is understanding the target users’ expectations and the competitors the app needs to deal with. The app tester must ensure finding all the design and development mistakes that put the app competitively in bad shape for the audience and its apps of the niche.
#3. Automation vs Actual User Testing
Automation testing is increasingly getting popular as the market is flooded with too many great emulator tools replacing the real devices across the platforms. Undoubtedly, emulators have helped the developed companies and the testing teams with great options to evaluate mobile apps without requiring access to many devices. But at the same time, emulators have their own shortcomings, and they cannot fully replace the actual devices in terms of testing output and capacity. Actual device testing with the target OS version is still irreplaceable in terms of effectiveness.
Simultaneously, mobile emulators and simulators cannot be completely removed from the scheme of things and are always going to be important testing tools for regular Regression Testing. But while keeping them as substitute options for the development companies at the same time should focus on using actual device testing for better and more accurate evaluation whenever possible.
#4. Diversity of Network Conditions
Developers and testers, when working in an app project, get the best network coverage and speed. But the users they target with the apps often use and access the app in different conditions ranging from poor network conditions to slow network or lightning-fast network connectivity.
Does the app perform well in all such network conditions, or at least does it offer some kind of alternatives to the users that can create some value for the app being accessed in poor network conditions? Yes, this question alone explains the challenge. The app must be tested in different network conditions and should come with offline access, local device caching, or progressive lazy loading or some kind of strategy that puts the users in control irrespective of the network conditions.
Conclusion
Did we miss anything to elucidate in the above-mentioned content? There might be quite a few. But here tried to explain the major testing challenges that most developers and testers face. Once you are in total control to take on these challenges, your app will likely get ahead of the competitive curve.
Author Bio
Nathan McKinley is Business Development Manager at Cerdonis Technologies LLC, a mobile app development company in Chicago, Illinois the USA that develops mobile-based digital products with end-to-end tech integration for enterprises and small tech startups, apart from being a Business Developer, I share key insights of mobility solutions that I learned over these years being a part of the technology industry.
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