How Mobile App Testing Facilitates the Development Process

Mobile applications have become an integral part of everyday life. With the rapid growth of technology and the increasing complexity of apps, user expectations are rising, and software quality has become a crucial priority. A successful app must run smoothly, look good, and protect its users. Therefore, rigorous mobile application testing is vital for ensuring the application is efficient, provides a smooth experience, and remains secure in various environments.

By incorporating testing into the development process, teams can identify issues early, minimize costs by preventing errors, enhance software reliability, and maintain customer trust. 

Mobile app testing now plays a strategic role in development, leveraging automated tools, AI technologies, and real device testing to optimize app reliability and performance.

As mobile applications continue to dominate in the digital world, user expectations for usability, security, and great performance are rising. 

According to Similarweb, mobile devices held nearly 68.51% of the market share of internet traffic, a dominance of mobile platforms, and a need for comprehensive mobile app testing as a crucial need. 

This is why mobile application testing is more important than ever. In the following post you'll learn the basics of mobile app testing, why it's important, and how it facilitates the development process.

What is mobile app testing?

When using an app, what most matters to you? Is it easy navigation, speed, or whether the app is safe for use? Mobile app testing ensures that the apps we are using every day are secure, smooth, and easy to use. Unlike web applications, mobile apps must run smoothly on various smartphones and tablets, different OS versions, screen sizes, and network conditions. There are two main approaches to mobile testing: manual and automated.

• Manual testing: Testers manually interact with the app to find issues or defects. This type of testing does not include any automation scripts or tools. 
• Automated testing: Testers write automation scripts and later use them to run tests automatically, using automation tools and frameworks.

Types of mobile apps

Mobile apps can be classified into the following types:

1. Native apps: Native apps are developed for a specific OS, Android or iOS. They use platform-specific programming languages like Objective-C or Swift for iOS, Java or Kotlin for Android.
2. Hybrid apps: These apps combine features from both native and web apps. They are built with web technologies but packed in a native container so they can function like native apps.
3. Web apps: These apps are accessible through web browsers, designed to look and feel like an app. They are not installed on the device and are platform independent. They’re built using web technologies like HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, or similar programming languages. 

Why is mobile app testing so important?

Mobile application testing plays a crucial role in the software development lifecycle (SDLC), validating the overall reliability of applications and focusing on ensuring the quality, functionality, usability, security, and performance of mobile applications across various devices and platforms. It involves a series of testing activities aimed at identifying and fixing defects or issues before the application is released to end-users. It ensures a seamless and consistent user experience, which in turn strengthens customer confidence and long-term business success. 

Imagine using an e-commerce app, finding a nice bag, and once you get to the last step to make the purchase, you try to click the ‘Finish order’ button, but nothing happens. Is it frustrating? You are excited about your purchase, but the app won’t let you complete it.

Or think about a job search app. You find an interesting job, you fill in all the required details, and once you get to the end, you tap the ‘Apply’ button, but the app freezes in a loading state and doesn’t respond. 

Users face these scenarios daily, and when multiple people experience them, the consequences can be damaging. The apps receive low ratings, poor reviews, and eventually, the frustrated users delete the app. For software development companies, this affects their business reputation and their success in the market. Testing early and thoroughly reduces the risk of all these issues, and prevents the company’s financial loss, sustains growth, and boosts its success in the market. 

Some of the key factors of importance of the mobile app testing are that it ensures the app works smoothly on different resolutions, screen sizes, and operating systems to provide app compatibility. It identifies vulnerabilities to prevent security risks. It detects lags, freezes, crashes, and performance issues to create a good user experience. It detects functional defects early in the development process to prevent maintenance costs later on. And last but not least, it ensures responsiveness and accessibility for all users. 

Facilitating the development process

One of the most important ways testing facilitates the development process is by offering insights into how real users interact with the application. Usability testing, for example, highlights areas that are confusing for users, complicated workflows, or unclear buttons.

Mobile app testing plays a crucial role in facilitating development by ensuring different defects and performance bottlenecks are identified before they escalate. Mobile app testing integrates into each stage of software development. It makes the development process smarter and smoother. 

By checking every step of the way and not worrying about hidden flaws after launch, developers receive clear guidance on what works and what needs to be improved. From a button that doesn’t respond, to a screen taking too long to load, app freezing or lagging, crashing, a layout that breaks on different screen sizes, all these can be caught early, before they can frustrate users. 

Thus, testing the app in this phase spots problems before they become headaches, and helps make the app feel natural and enjoyable to use. 

Challenges of mobile app testing

We all use our mobile devices every day. What’s important for us as users is that everything works smoothly. But the truth is, making sure the app runs smoothly is harder than it looks. A lot of challenges developers and testers face before the app comes to life. One of the main challenges that mobile app testing is facing is the variety of devices that mobile devices must work on, different OS versions, variety of screen sizes and resolutions. 

A top priority for mobile applications is security. Users want to be sure and trust the app when entering sensitive information, for example, card details. It should be properly tested for security so this information is not at risk. Then there comes ensuring a good user experience by providing an app that runs smoothly and loads quickly. Nobody wants an app that drains the phone's battery in a few hours. Different features like push notifications, GPS can affect battery life and frustrate users. That’s why performance testing plays an important part in mobile app testing. 

Don’t forget the fact that technology changes constantly, and tech giants like Google and Apple release updates frequently, and new phones with unique features appear all the time. 

Thus, what’s working perfectly now doesn’t mean that it will work the same on a new phone later if not tested against those changes. And last but not least, network conditions also take part as one of the challenges of mobile app testing.

Unlike desktop users who typically rely on stable connections, mobile app users use their app everywhere, on the bus, in a crowded public place, switching between 5G, 4G, and Wi-Fi. Sometimes the internet is so slow or drops out completely, and the app needs to handle all these situations without freezing or crashing. Thus, testing apps under these conditions is essential. These are some of the challenges that show how complex mobile testing is. Testing is more than finding bugs. It’s about ensuring the app performs across different real-life scenarios, devices, and networks, and that the app is reliable and secure to use. 

Mobile testing in the future

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform the digital world, mobile testing will play a more major role. Industry experts predict stronger integration with agile, creating fluid workflows from development to deployment. Artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) are now transforming the way QA engineers work. 

AI and Machine learning will help automate the testing processes. AI will help engineers to identify potential problems earlier in the process, and machine learning will examine user behavior and predict how the app will function over time.  The testing itself will shift earlier into the development process. Every update of the app, even the smallest ones, will be tested, and the risks will be reduced.

QA engineers won’t spend much time on repetitive tasks, because the testing will rely on intelligent systems that can predict potential issues, generate test cases, and ensure broader coverage. Such tools will have the ability to adapt instantly, updating the scripts once an app’s functionality or design changes. A stronger focus on user experience is what makes this transformation more exciting. 

Testing is not limited to the functionality of the app only, but it also gives more focus on how easy and natural it is to interact with the app. Mobile app testing will become more intuitive and more streamlined. Cloud-based platforms and services can help engineers test apps across multiple devices and operating systems. And finally, the expansion of 5G technologies is a revolution that promises ultra-fast speed, seamless connectivity, and ultra-low latency. Testing is not limited to phones, it also includes other smart devices as watches and other wearables.  

Conclusion

Mobile app testing is essential for delivering reliable and user-friendly applications. It’s crucial for preventing security and performance issues, and crashes, which, if not stopped, lead to user dissatisfaction and app uninstallation. Apps that crash a lot lose their users. According to BrowserStack, 71% of app uninstalls happen due to crashes. 

Also, 70% of users abandon an app because it takes too long to load. This affects business performance. An unreliable app damages not only the user trust, but also costs companies a huge revenue by losing customers, and decreases retention.

That's why mobile app testing is crucial for delivering a smooth, reliable, and seamless user experience. Regardless of working on native, hybrid, or cross-platform applications, quality assurance testing should be a priority. Combining manual, automated, and AI-driven testing tools ensures the app’s quality, leading to satisfied users and company success.