How to Build a Mobile Testing Strategy: A Step-by-Step Guide from a QA Engineer

It’s now easier to create and enjoy the mobile web from any device or screen with responsive web design. Mobile testing strategies are no longer an advantage, but a critical part of your overall quality assurance process.

Mobile testing allows mobile application testing companies to test their apps for usability, consistency, functionality, and usability. Many businesses combine manual and automated testing for mobile QA testing. Mobile applications are becoming more complex every day. It is therefore difficult to test them without a robust mobile testing strategy in place. We will be sharing some key tips to help you create a mobile quality assurance plan.

The guide will help you create a mobile testing strategy that works. You can better understand the essential parts of mobile QA, so you are prepared to create an amazing mobile experience for each user.

1. Make a Decision about Your Target Market

Your first step in mobile application testing should involve identifying your target market. The team should research your target market and create their requirements.

It is easier to identify the target market and group customers into priority groups. This step can be implemented in the initial phases of mobile app development. It will allow testing teams to reduce the amount of coverage needed during testing.

Knowing the target market will help determine which iOS/Android devices should be included in the mobile testing strategy. The testing team has the option of using crowd testing, a beta community approach, or buying the devices themselves.

2. Gather and Analyze Mobile App Requirements

In most cases, the initial research done by testing teams is inadequate. These teams should interact with users and interaction designers to gather requirements and then finalize the app.

The QA team can then create test scenarios for the application based on the feedback. The development team can also use this information for priority features during the development phase. It not only establishes milestones for mobile device testing strategies, but it also helps the development team understand user behavior as well as the testing environment for the app.

This is because the product/project manager may have different requirements for mobile users. It’s important that you understand these differences. This is due to the fact that your mobile users are likely to have different testing persons than your regular desktop users, and may use the application in a different way.

It is important to consider how the user will interact with the device, such as scrolling and typing. This step can be helped by creating user stories and scenarios. Defining requirements will help you and your QA team determine the best project management approach to the next steps.

3. Application Security Testing

Mobile devices are constantly at risk from cyber attacks. Security testing is an integral part of any mobile app testing strategy.

The first thing you must see as a tester is the security of your mobile application’s data flow. Especially if data contains personally identifiable information or other personal data, QA testing must be performed on data flows.

You should also be careful about where your customers store their data and whether they are sent via encrypted or secured channels. Data security is improved by preventing data being saved to clients’ devices. Data leakage is another important concern for testing teams. It is important to make sure that no testing data gets leaked via log files.

Secure data transfer between the server and app should be done securely. HTTPS encryption is used by most mobile apps. It is essential to conduct a security audit if your company uses this method. This test will ensure that authenticated pages are delivered via HTTPS.

4. Crowdsourced Testing

Crowdsourced testing is a new trend in mobile app testing. This approach involves the testing team identifying a specific focus group in their target market. The company then uses the focus group to test a specific user experience.

In most cases, testing teams use the services of a third party testing service to collect a group to test the mobile application. These professionals will then test your mobile app and report on the bugs found. The testing service then concludes the meeting with a report that includes feedback from all participants and a list of bugs found in the application.

Crowdsourced testing can be a great option to uncover hidden bugs in your application. Crowdsourced testing is faster and allows you to launch your product earlier.

The process is also cost-effective, as you can save money on hardware and set up the testing environment for the application. You won’t need to test different OS versions or device sizes.

5. Use Your QA Toolkit and Testing Knowledge

You don’t need to be mobile only. There are many tools that can make testing easier. Appium, which is open-source, is the best option for testers who wish to automate. This allows you to automate the same tasks on multiple devices. It does require some programming skills. Other tools that testers may use include Robotium, Selendroid and MonkeyTalk, Calabash and Frank.

You can also purchase paid options to make your testing process even more efficient and faster. TestComplete lets you create and execute repeatable, robust UI tests across native and desktop iOS, Android apps, and web iOS.

CrossBrowserTesting allows you to run parallel automated tests across multiple browsers and devices at once for web testing. Manual testing is also possible. You can test and debug different browser configurations from your desktop browser. There are over 1,500 browser configurations that you can use for live testing. Our full-page screenshot comparator makes it easy for you to identify inconsistencies across browsers and remotely debug them. The best thing about this integration is that you can use them all together.

You must have a solid understanding of best practices in testing to decide when to test manually and when to automate. You won’t be able to demonstrate your test automation skills without first running exploratory testing. If you rely on manual testing, you won’t get as much done at work, and if it is, it won’t happen on many devices. It’s not a good strategy.

6. Define Your Mobile Testing Approach

Although it is not an easy task to create a mobile test strategy, you will be on the right track if you answer the four questions below.

• What part of the app is possible to automate, and which layer can it be?
• What about the parts that are not automated but require manual testing?
• Are there any hardware-specific functions that the app uses?
• What are the non-functional requirements for the app?

Because users are mobile, not all features can be automated within an app. Automating the end-to–end layer of an app may not be possible depending on its use case. It is therefore important to identify features that are not easy or impossible to automate. These features should be manually tested before each release.

Manual mobile testing is essential to ensure that the app works in the exact environment customers will use. You could test the app in your daily commute, while on a hike, or during a competition. Crowd or beta testing may be helpful in this phase, as mentioned previously.

Hardware-specific functions such as the camera and the sensors must be included in the test strategy. These functions should be prioritized according to the user scenarios. It is important to test against hardware-specific functions on a wider variety of devices in order to fully cover all components.

Last but not the least, the mobile developers must be aware of all non-functional requirements for the app.

These are non-functional requirements that you should consider:

• Security;
• Load and Performance;
• Usability;
• Accessibility;
• Internationalization (I18N), and Localization (L10N).

These non-functional requirements should be considered during design, development and testing phases.

Do not compromise on digital quality. Take the time to find the best testing method for you. It is crucial to make the right decisions now.

7. Beta Testing will Always Be Helpful

In the past, applicants for beta testing were submitted by organizations to select (very few) candidates and paid them for their contributions. This process is somewhat similar to usability testing. The same method is used today, but it’s on a larger scale and involves multiple countries, different time zones, as well as large groups of people. The bottom line is that beta testing is an important step in perfecting your mobile application strategy. How does beta testing help?

This allows you to identify any bugs or defects in your application that may have been overlooked during production. Your application is therefore delivered error-free to the masses. This strategy can however be viewed as an advantage for the entire business.

Beta testing is a great way to save testers from all the work that comes with addressing the accumulated defects from users. Imagine the increase in workload if an app crashes on an operating system that has never been tested. This is the perfect strategy to test mobile apps.

Resolving bugs is much more expensive after a mobile app has been released. Mobile testing is designed to find bugs in mobile applications. The client’s requirements and any functional or non-functional features of the application must be tested by the testing team.

App development teams can also introduce new features that may affect the functionality of existing features. Mobile testing is a great way for testing teams to catch bugs before they affect the application’s normal functions.

8. Why is Mobile Testing Important?

The success of any mobile application depends on its mobile testing. App users can easily tell the difference between quality and user experience by looking at mobile applications. If you don’t provide the features that users want, your approval rating can fall significantly.

Mobile testing allows you to identify and fix bugs before your app reaches users. This allows you to ensure that your users have the same user experience and quality features.

Furthermore, rolling back or recalling mobile apps is more expensive. Mobile testing allows us to validate the changes made to the application, and reduce the development and maintenance costs of the project.

Mobile testing, in conclusion, maximizes the performance and quality of a mobile app while validating its core capabilities.

Mobile QA strategies are not something you can do overnight. However, understanding the components of the system will allow you to start from scratch. You can create new integrations by understanding how to test mobile devices, what tools to use and which machines to test them on. This will ensure that your users aren’t subject to the same crazy behavior as desktop users.

It is essential to develop a mobile app testing strategy that is efficient, flexible, and optimized for your customers in order to deliver high-quality mobile apps. To provide the best user experience, you must be able to prioritize testing, identify bugs early, automate tests, minimize risk, and efficiently distribute app resources to ensure that your customers have the best possible experience.

To be able to create a strong mobile test strategy, you must be familiar with quality assurance activities. It is best to trust a mobile testing service to get the best results.