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Businesses must maximize their visibility to succeed. Since every business’s target audience is online and uses mobile devices, companies must provide excellent software platforms for customers to communicate effectively. A well-designed mobile and web application testing strategy, using mobile app and web app testing tools, is essential to develop flawless software applications. These tools ensure that applications perform smoothly and meet user expectations across various devices.
Businesses are leveraging mobile application testing to attract and retain users as customer attitudes shift. Having 24-hour access to the testing lab is essential to accelerate the testing cycle.
As a result, QA teams are considering a cloud-based laptop or mobile device lab for 24/7 access, cost savings, scalability, and other benefits. Read this blog to learn about the types of mobile and web app testing, as well as the tools used for web and mobile testing. Let’s begin.
Types of App Testing
What is Mobile App Testing?
Mobile app testing is the process of evaluating application software designed to control and operate mobile devices. It assesses the functionality, usability, compatibility, and other aspects of a mobile application.
What is Web App Testing?
Web app testing is the process of evaluating web-based application software for quality, functionality, usability, and related factors. It is also called web testing or internet testing.
Types of Mobile App Testing?
Here are the top 6 types of mobile app testing:
Functional Testing
This mobile testing ensures that every function of an app works as intended. It focuses on evaluating the app’s user flows and the features within each flow. Customers expect each app to perform flawlessly. If they discover a vulnerability, they are likely to delete the software without hesitation. In mobile functional testing, you should check whether the app installs and launches correctly. The sign-up and login processes should be simple, and all text boxes, buttons, menus, and icons should work properly. Push notifications should render correctly and display at appropriate intervals. Any transactions or purchases should occur seamlessly.
Interruption Testing
This mobile testing assesses how an application handles unexpected interruptions. Depending on the type of interruption, the program should pause, restore its previous state, or respond appropriately. Interruptions include incoming phone calls while the application is running, incoming texts or SMS, low battery, device charging or shutdown, operating system upgrades, and loss or restoration of network connections during program execution.
Speed Testing
Speed testing ensures that the app opens faster than its previous version and competitors’ apps. Speed testing differs slightly from performance testing. Speed testing occurs in an ideal environment, while performance testing examines an app’s behavior under various conditions. Additionally, speed testing is more commonly used to evaluate the performance of web apps rather than mobile apps.
To test the website:
- Enter your website’s URL.
- Select the mobile device and browser combinations you want.
- Receive a report showing how quickly your site loads on different browsers and devices. The report also includes actionable performance insights and user-centric metrics for benchmarking website performance.
Performance Testing
It is essential to test an application’s performance in various scenarios. This is where performance testing becomes important. It applies different types of stress to the device to ensure it functions properly under adverse conditions.
Performance testing should check the following:
- Device Performance: This includes installation time, log-in times, battery life, memory usage, and similar factors.
- Network Performance: This includes delays, glitches, and interruptions in receiving digital information or rendering network-activated features.
- API/Server Performance: Refers to the speed and manner of data flow from the back end to the front end.
- Recovery Capabilities: Built-in backup and recovery functions store or recover user data in case of loss.
Security Testing
Security testing is a crucial part of mobile app testing. Research shows that 80% of consumers will delete an app if they experience a security issue. For example, a fitness monitoring app may request personal details during registration. Users are likely to provide this information only if the app guarantees that their data will not be leaked or sold to third parties.
A QA engineer should test an app for all potential cyber-attacks, data loss, and theft. One way to reassure clients about the application’s security is to request their permission at each stage of the signup process. The tester should conduct multiple benchmark security tests and certify the program.
Manual Testing
Manual testing is one of the oldest and most effective methods for testing mobile applications. It helps navigate the complexities of a mobile application and ensures that the app developed for the final release meets the expectations of both the developer and the user. Manual testing is useful for evaluating scenarios that are not immediately apparent to users. It can take various forms, including physical interface tests, complex tests, and exploratory tests.
Types of Web App Testing
Here are the top 6 types of web app testing every QA should do:
System Testing
System testing is performed on a fully integrated web application to verify that it meets all requirements. This testing confirms that the system has undergone end-to-end operation and checks its interfaces with other environments. System testing includes functional, non-functional, performance, and usability testing to assess the overall behavior and reliability of the system.
System testing involves end-to-end scenarios that replicate real user behavior and demonstrate how the user interacts with the system. A major advantage of system testing is that it identifies defects early in the testing phase, reducing the cost and time required to resolve issues found later in the development cycle.
Regression Testing
Regression testing identifies issues in previously tested code or configurations after revisions or updates. This testing ensures that upgrades or changes do not disrupt the web application’s existing features. Regression testing can be time-consuming and resource-intensive because it involves both manual and automated testing.
Compatibility Testing
Compatibility testing ensures that a web application functions correctly across multiple web browsers and operating systems, regardless of the device or platform used to access it. It includes functional, visual, and performance compatibility. Compatibility testing helps developers identify issues with cross-browser compatibility, hardware compatibility, and other factors that may affect user experience.
UI Testing
UI testing determines whether the user interface of a web application functions correctly and is visually appealing to users. It ensures that elements such as web pages, forms, buttons, and other visual components are displayed properly and work as intended.
UI testing involves thoroughly checking the design and layout of the user interface, its responsiveness, and its compatibility across different devices and screen sizes. Through UI testing, developers and testers can identify issues such as poor layout, incorrect error messages, or typos that may affect the user experience.
Performance Testing
Performance testing assesses a web application’s speed, stability, and scalability under different user loads and network conditions. This testing identifies and eliminates bottlenecks, ensuring the application can support many users while maintaining stability and response time. Performance testing confirms that the application meets its requirements and provides a consistent user experience.
Security Testing
Security testing uncovers vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and issues within an application. Its purpose is to identify security threats and risks that could lead to breaches compromising the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of sensitive information. Network security, access control, data protection, and authentication are all aspects of security testing. Web developers can detect and address security issues before attackers do. This testing ensures application security and provides a safe environment for user data.
Tools for Mobile and Web App Testing
Tools for Web App Testing
Here are the top tools for mobile app testing:
Selenium
Selenium supports all major browsers on all major operating systems and allows you to write tests in multiple programming languages, including JavaScript, Groovy, Java, C#, PHP, Python, Perl, and Ruby. It is somewhat more difficult to set up and use than other tools, making it better suited for companies with QA engineers who do not need to move quickly.
Cypress
Cypress is popular among some front-end developers because its tests are written in JavaScript, run quickly (especially compared to Selenium), and include built-in support for features such as API stubbing and network condition simulation.
Tools for Mobile App Testing
Here are the top 3 tools for web app testing you should know:
Calabash
Calabash is a mobile test automation framework that supports multiple languages, including Ruby, Java, Flex, and .NET. Testers can use APIs to enable native apps on touchscreen devices. The framework includes modules that allow test scripts to communicate programmatically with native and hybrid applications.
Espresso
Espresso is a mobile automation framework from Google that allows you to create and deploy UI tests for Android apps. Because testing an application’s user interface is essential before deployment, app developers and testers frequently use Espresso. Developers can design a scenario and record their interactions with a device, then add assertions to capture snapshots of the app’s UI elements and check their behavior. The program stores the recording and generates UI test cases, which can be used to test the app.
Robotium
Robotium is a popular open-source tool used specifically for testing Android applications. Test cases are written in Java. Robotium is known for its ability to generate automated black-box test cases. It automates many tasks that a tester performs on an Android app and requires little time to create test cases.
Cross-Platform Testing Tools For Mobile and Web
Appium
Appium is built on Selenium WebDriver (the core component of Selenium) and is designed for testing native mobile apps and web apps on iOS and Android devices. Like Selenium, it supports multiple programming languages.
Conclusion
Businesses must give equal importance to mobile and web application testing to create a well-functioning app with a pleasant user experience. Cloud testing platforms offer many advantages over physical device labs, so laptop or mobile device labs should be evaluated. The company’s needs will determine whether to use a web or mobile app, but having both ensures a wider audience.