Mobile testing process: pro vs cons

Question

In my current project, we have started to develop a Mobile app besides the Web app.

So, I'm curious and want to have your advice about :

1. What's the difference between mobile app vs web app? When testing mobile app, what are things that we need to focus on?
2. When defining the process, (called Mobile testing process), what's the process that you will suggest to your PM, PO to have a best quality?
3. What's the difficult thing that you meet or you think we will meet in mobile testing?

Any comment is welcome.

Answer 1

1. What's the difference between mobile app vs web-app? When testing mobile app, what are things that we need to focus on? Ans: If you mean mobile website by web app then: mobile app needs to be installed to use whereas mobile web is the mobile compatible same website as you see at desktop with fewer options compatible to mobile screen.

2. When defining the process, (called Mobile testing process), what's the process that you will suggest to your PM, PO to have a best quality? Ans: Testing process is almost same as you follow while testing desktop/web application. Just you need to increase the compatibility scope like above mentioned areas of internet connectivity, mobile devices and os and also check the stability of app like -- its not crashing or taking too much RAM to slow down the device etc..

3. What's the difficult thing that you meet or you think we will meet in mobile testing? Ans: Repetitive cycles of Regression of multiple builds on multiple devices, this will be pain area, solution is to automate a certain percentage, at least few complete cycles will definitely help you.

Answer 2

Testing concept will remain same for mobile like UI Testing, functional Testing, Security Testing, Performance Testing and a lot more.

But there are lot of things need to check in mobile which is not covered in web testing. This is Good Mobile application testing checklist.

Other some example of things, different in mobile testing are :

1 - Testing in different devices.

2 - Testing with different networks like wifi , 4G, 3G, 2G etc.

So your Testing cycle will be same just will need different test cases than website.

Answer 3

Here are some answers based on my experience

First of all, we need to be clear on the verbiage. A mobile app could be a native app, web app or hybrid app. Then you have Desktop mobile websites which could be normal or responsive websites. Let me tell you the differences.

• Mobile Web apps - Are any mobile compatible websites which can be viewed in a mobile browser on your phone. It is usually implemented using CSS, HTML, JavaScript.

• Mobile Native apps - Are apps specifically designed to run on your Mobile OS firmware. It could be either iOS, Android, Windows, Tizen etc. You will have a separate implementation of the same app for different OS versions. For example - Facebook has an Android, iOS and a Windows app. It is implemented using Objective-C/Swift for iOS, Java for Android, C# for Windows and so on.

• Mobile Hybrid apps - It give the user a feel of a native app but is implemented using web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, CSS. For example - Evernote - the famous note taking app, Fruit Ninja the mobile game are hybrid apps

• Desktop websites - Are websites specifically designed to run on the desktop browsers. They are implemented using HTML, CSS, JavaScript as well.

• Responsive websites - Are websites that can scale based on the screen size and resolution of the device. For example - If you go to Disney.com on say your chrome browser, as you reduce the size of the browser the desktop scales accordingly, giving the user the optimum viewing experience.

Different things you want to focus on while doing mobile testing can be found here - http://www.rajsubra.com/2015/01/16/native-app-testing-cheat-sheet-quick-tour/

In terms of what process to follow, I have personally created mobile testing process and automation frameworks from scratch in my previous companies. Based on this, I have documented a process that can help anyone get started with a mobile testing process. You can check out the article here - https://www.stickyminds.com/article/4-steps-rebuilding-testing-team-bringing-stability-chaos?page=0%2C0

Finally, I have also documented different mobile testing resources on my website to help other testers like me. You can check it out here -

http://www.rajsubra.com/mobile-testing/

http://www.rajsubra.com/publications/

-Raj

Answer 4

1. What's the difference between mobile app vs web-app? When testing mobile app, what are things that we need to focus on?

Answer:

Web App

A mobile website is similar to any other website in that it consists of browser-based HTML pages that are linked together and accessed over the Internet (for mobile typically WiFi or 3G or 4G networks). The obvious characteristic that distinguishes a mobile website from a standard website is the fact that it is designed for the smaller handheld display and touch-screen interface.

Mobile App

Apps are actual applications that are downloaded and installed on your mobile device, rather than being rendered within a browser. Users visit device-specific portals such as Apple’s App Store, Android Market, or Blackberry App World in order to find and download apps for a given operating system. The app may pull content and data from the Internet, in a similar fashion to a website, or it may download the content so that it can be accessed without an Internet connection.

Key difference

• A mobile website is instantly accessible to users via a browser across a range of devices (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, etc). Apps, on the other hand require the user to first download and install the app from an app marketplace before the content or application can be viewed - a significant barrier between initial engagement and action/conversion.

• Compatibility – Mobile Websites are Compatible Across Devices A the single mobile website can reach users across many different types of mobile devices, whereas native apps require a separate version to be developed for each type of device.

2.When defining the process, (called Mobile testing process), what's the process that you will suggest to your PM, PO to have a best quality?

Answer:

Here are the couple of things which we need to make a note of it while testing Mobile Application

• Perform Functional test to check if the App meets its purpose
• Run Usability tests to ensure customers’ comfort in your app
• Test if your App performs well in the background like Sending/Receiving messages and alerts while the app is running
• Need to check the Memory Consumption
• Check your app in different devices and OS, network conditions
• Ensure the application do not get crashed.
• Ensuring the mobile applications perform well while using data, Wi-Fi or other connectivity
• Run Backward and forward compatibility testing before moving the new changes
• Verify by installing, reinstalling and updating the app
• Verify both Mobile orientation(Portrait and Landscape)
• Testing Social network integration(if any)

• Run Security Testing

  3. What's the difficult thing that you meet or you think we will meet in mobile testing?

Answer:

Applying Test Automation