Why Consider Automation Testing in Mobile App Development?

Whenever it comes to launching a mobile app, we often overlook mobile app testing. We consider it as a time-consuming and worthless process; boasting that our app is bug-free and just the right fit for the app market.

But, is this the right way?

According to the top experts, mobile app testing is one of the top reasons why mobile apps fail at succeeding in the market. When the mobile app developers do not test their app thoroughly and launch a bug-prone app in the market, their application either fails to enter the mobile sphere or in delivering the exquisite user experience which is the dire need of the app industry.

Now, the question that arises here is: How to test your mobile app effectively, especially when the competition in the market is rising abruptly? How to ensure that you release a flawless application quickly?

One relevant answer to this question is Automation testing, about which will be talking in this article. So, without making an ado, let’s begin with the basics of Automation testing.

 

Automation Testing

Automation testing refers to a mobile app testing method in which the app modules are tested via testing tools, with minimal human intervention. In this process, the test scenarios are scripted by the quality expert once and then, they are run on different real devices and emulators frequently to analyze and maintain the code quality.

This process of automating the testing phase has a myriad of benefits for the mobile app development companies, with the major ones as follows:-

 

Benefits of Automation Mobile App Testing

 

1. Vast Coverage: When doing manually, you would be able to test your mobile application on a limited set of devices. But, this is not so in the case of Automation testing. With this mechanism, you will be able to test your mobile app on a vast range of devices and emulators, which will help you to gain better insights and build a better application.

2. More Efficiency: With Automation testing, you will be able to test your Android or iOS app on a different set of devices working upon varied OS versions. This will give you the privilege to test your app features and functionalities more efficiently and launch an app that becomes users’ favorite. In other words, Automation mobile app testing can enable you to enhance the efficiency of your app.

3. Less Time Consumption: Unlike Manual testing, this app testing empowers you to test your app on multiple devices at the same time without any human resources involved. This cut down the time required for the mobile application testing process and ensure that your app reaches to the market earlier.

4. Improved Accuracy: A tester might collect some invalid value or skip something while testing an app, but there’s no as such issue with Automation testing tools. These tools follow the same process and amass the more precise value, which eventually provides you with a higher accuracy rate.

5. Higher App Quality: Since this mobile app testing mechanism offers you with more accurate insights on testing your app on multiple devices in real-time, it helps you to launch an app with higher quality, which in turn improves the chances of app success.

With benefits mentioned above, the Automation testing is considered by a large number of startups and established businesses, which is a great decision. However, it is not easy to outline a roadmap to Automation testing. You need to consider different factors while planning Automation testing and selecting the right tools in the cycle.

So, to help you out in this process, here are some of the best practices and automation testing tools you should focus upon in 2019 and beyond:-

 

Proven Practices to Consider While Performing Automation Testing in Mobile App Development

 

1. Identify areas within the software to automate

Unlike Manual Testing, you can rely on Automation testing to test a particular area of your mobile app. So, determine which area you want to test for gaining better insights and improve your app.

According to the reputed mobile app development companies, the best way to determine which area to test is to go with the recently updated/added app section. This process, when applied periodically, enables you to test the least workable model without getting confused where to begin with.

2. Choose the appropriate tool for test automation

Though there are various app testing tools, not all will fit with your mobile app development goals. So, it is better to determine which tools goes with your requirements and invest in it.

To help you out, here are the top automation testing tools to consider in 2019:-

a. Appium: Appium is an open-source automation mobile app testing tool that is used to test native, web and hybrid apps. The tool supports different development environments and programming languages, such as Objective-C, JavaScript and Java.

b. Selenium: It is the most popular open-source automation testing framework for web apps. The platform supports a vast number of environments, including Linux and Mac and lets you write scripts in different programming languages like Java, Python, PHP, Groovy, C#, Perl, and Ruby.

On top of it, this tool empowers the quality analysts to write and test complex test scripts, which implies the tool can be considered for testing even the advanced apps.

c. TestComplete: TestComplete is a robust automation testing tool used to test web and mobile applications. It performs data-driven testing and provides you with a handy record and playback feature, as well as detects the updated UI elements which lessens the efforts to maintain test scripts on any change in AUT.

d. Postman: Postman is yet another effective, friendly and easy-to-use automation testing tool that both the testers and developers use to build and test their APIs. The tool can be installed as a browser extension or a desktop app on Windows, Linux and Mac.

e. Apache JMeter: This tool is basically used for performance and loading testing in mobile applications. Here, you can use CSV files to set values for API testing, support integration with CI tools like Jenkins and replay the test results for better planning.

3. Write test scripts

Automation testing process is not completely automated. A mobile app tester has to write test scripts that the tools will execute to test different scenarios and collect the required data. So, the next major thing you need to consider while automation testing is to focus on the type of test scripts being written and employed for testing.

4. Build result reports

The next best practice to consider in case of Automation testing is to build result reports. As per the top mobile app development companies, it is mandatory for you to look into what type of results will be gathered and how they will be delivered to you  – will they be stored and presented in CSV files or in some other formats.

5. Find possible bugs or performance issue

Last but not least, finding the bugs and ensuring the performance testing is essential for mobile app testing.

Do you find this useful? Have any query? Feel free to leave a comment below.