Today, most businesses are incorporating mobile applications to augment brand visibility, improve sales, and provide effective customer support service. There are multiple advantages of developing a mobile app for your business. It has become an essential tool for communication and geo-targeting marketing. Increased recognition of your brand helps build customer loyalty, and developing a high-quality app will help you stand out from the crowd.
Testing is a crucial requirement for the successful and rapid delivery of high-quality mobile applications. Mobile app testing strategy involves several critical stages, including testing the functionality, usability, UI, compatibility (configuration), performance, certifications, beta, localization, recovery, and security aspects of the app. Besides manual testing, you can also integrate automation tools for mobile testing to improve the testing method’s efficiency.
Studies reveal that 80-90% of mobile applications that are launched in the app stores are abandoned just after a single-use. Hence it is essential to integrate robust testing methods to develop a mobile app that can generate high ROI and improved conversion rates. However, to perform the testing method efficiently, you need to choose the right testing tool. Here are a few pointers that you need to consider while selecting a mobile app testing tool.
· Support Multiple Scripting Languages
Scripting languages, such as JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Python, and others, are types of computer languages used to give instructions to other software, like a web browser, server, or standalone application.While choosing a testing tool, you need to analyze your QA team’s capabilities to work with a scripting language that they are most familiar with.
Choose a testing tool that supports multiple programming languages so that your QA team can work comfortably with it. Scripting languages can perform different actions in a particular runtime environment; it can automate task execution, enhance the app’s functionality, perform configurations, extract data from data sets, and others. If you are new to the field of testing, choose a scripting language that is easy to learn and would require you to learn simple syntax.
· Creating Tests For Different Mobile Operating Systems
It is essential to test the application on different platforms, including a combination of different devices, operating systems, and some other software, to compare and analyze the application’s behavior in different environments. It enables you to make sure that your application delivers an optimal user experience, independent of the platform which is used to access it. You should select a mobile app testing tool that allows you to run your test scripts across several mobile platforms. Additionally, it should also support test codes’ reuse to test functionality and design across different platforms, not to recreate the test scripts for another platform. Platform compatibility testing should be an integral part of your testing tool to ensure that your app delivers consistent and reliable performance.
· Scriptless Options For Test Creation
The scriptless testing feature uses model, object, data, or keyword-driven approaches for testing purposes. It reduces or eliminates the need for scripting to perform the tests. Scriptless testing lowers maintenance costs. Choose a testing tool that can help you to run the tests without coding. It is valuable for the QA team, who do not have the required programming skills. Moreover, it brings exceptional benefits, such as quality and cost management during the testing procedure. While choosing a scriptless testing tool, ensure that it can quickly generate test steps in a test case, store reusable elements or objects, record test cases, and execute them on multiple platforms.
· Seamless Integration With CI/CD Tools
Continuous integration (CI) is a methodology in which the team members integrate their work with increasing frequency. Continuous delivery (CD) is a procedure to package and deploy what CI builds and tests. High-functioning CI/CD practices facilitate the agile development of the application. The testing tool you use to test your app should integrate easily with the tools you already use as part of your CI/CD processes.
· Cost
Cost is an improved parameter while choosing a testing tool. You need to determine your budget for the app testing process and choose a tool accordingly. Depending on the pricing plan, select a tool that integrates the required features that will help you to build high-quality software. The price of the tools is a critical factor that you should consider to justify the investment and ROI calculation. You can also look for the availability of add-ons, support and updates, and the associated price of these extra features.
· Data-Driven Inputs
Data-driven testing enables the tester to understand how the application deals with a range of inputs. The testing tool should pull data from a data source, enter the fetched data into the app, and verify if the application responds desirably before repeating the test with another set of data. The testing tool should significantly increase the test coverage and simultaneously reduce the need for preparing multiple test scripts.
· Continuous Testing
Choose a testing tool that should be able to support the continuous testing approach to promote code changes and rapidly get feedback about how these changes impact the performance of the app. Continuous testing is of crucial importance to make the QA processes more efficient. Continuous testing helps to check the defects on time before more codes are layered up.
To Conclude:
Mobile application testing tools enable the QA team to test the app’s performance, and consistency across various devices and OS. Look for the above-mentioned features in your app testing tool to make the right choice.
