What Is Mobile Testing For COVID-19

High-quality mobile apps have that work well on all types of handheld devices have become the need of the hour. Since customers today have become tech-savvy and prefer to use mobile apps for performing routine tasks and important work; it has become essentially important for businesses to ensure their apps are delivering a great experience to users. This is where mobile application testing comes into the picture. Let us now try to understand this testing type in more detail. 

What is mobile testing?

It is an important software testing type in which the applications developed for handheld devices are tested. The main aim of this test is to ensure the proper functionality, usability, security, and reliability of these apps. Since various types of mobile devices have varying screen devices, OS fragmentation, networks, etc., businesses need to ensure their apps are compatible with every type of mobile device.

Why is the need for mobile testing amid COVID-19?

Let have a look at the need for mobile app testing amid COVID-19 across industry segments:

·         Healthcare sector: During the current pandemic there has been a significant rise in the use of healthcare apps, telemedicine apps, health tracking, and management apps. Every day there are almost 200 new healthcare apps added to top app stores. To ensure proper functioning, usability, and security of apps and their data, this testing is required

·         Telecom sector: Telecom services providers use a variety of apps such as retailer app, mobile wallet, CRM app, vendor app, customer support app, etc. to provide services to users. To ensure these apps functions effectively on all mobile devices, this test is required

·         Banking and Insurance sector: Amid COID-19, customers prefer to avail banking facilities via mobile apps. Also, the banks are providing more and more facilities over mobile apps to let users avail these facilities on the go. Effective mobile app testing is the need of an hour for all banks and financial institutions to ensure their apps never face unexpected downtime, load issue, UI issues, transaction issues, integration issues, etc.

·         Education sector: The COVID-19 pandemic affected the education of millions of students globally. However, due to video conferencing, online education portals, and apps students were able to continue their studies from home. To ensure these apps performs well on all mobile devices, this testing is essential

·         Retail and shopping: To contain the spread of COVID-19, people were forced to stay at home. This gave a sudden rise to the usage of eCommerce apps. With the help of these apps, people were able to buy necessary items such as groceries and kitchen supplies. 

      But the sudden increase in user load and compatibility of the app across handheld devices pose a great challenge. This is where this testing type is needed as it helps to ensure mobile apps are compatible on all mobile devices and ensures proper functioning under all conditions

What are the different types of mobile testing?

Below mentioned are the 9 types of the testing method that are performed on mobile apps:

·         Installation testing – The very first task that a user performs before even using the app is installing the app. Therefore, it is necessary to check whether the application can be successfully installed, uninstalled, updated, or not. This test ensures that applications work as expected after installation.

·         Storage testing – This test ensures that the data of the application is stored in the right format and under the right directory. It checks that sufficient app storage is available on disk so that the app does not terminate unexpectedly

·         Functional testing- This test verifies that all the functionalities of the app are working as specified in the design document. There are a variety of functional tests that are conducted on applications such as installation testing, upgrade testing, GPS, touch testing, UI testing, connectivity testing, battery drain testing, memory testing, etc.

·         Performance testing – This test is performed to check the speed, responsiveness, operating capacity, scalability, and stability of the application under various workloads. The main aim of this test is to eliminate performance bottlenecks before the application goes live. The different types of performance tests conducted on the application are - load, spike, endurance, volume, etc.

·         Usability testing – This test is performed to ensure that the app is easy to use or not for users. Feedback is collected from the end-users and actions are taken to improve the usability of the app based on the findings by the user groups.

·         Compatibility testing –The main aim of this test is to check the compatibility of the app on various devices, platforms, OS, browsers, networks, etc.

·         Security testing – The main aim of this test is to verify data integrity, storage issues, and security of the mobile apps. It also ensures that the applications are free from all vulnerabilities and security loopholes. The different types of security tests are vulnerability tests, penetration tests, security scanning, security auditing, etc.

·         Localization testing – The main aim of this test is to ensure that the proper date & time formats are included in the app, local currency, text, and local regulations are included as per the region so that the app can be accessed seamlessly  across the globe

·         Digital testing – This testing type covers the entire gamut of mobile testing of both functional and non-functional testing methods.

What are the benefits of mobile testing?

·         Helps teams to deliver fully functional apps: The main aim of this testing method is to ensure that the app functions as expected. To ensure these various functional testing methods are performed

·         Uplifts brand’s image: Good quality apps deliver greater CX. This helps to increase the brand’s reputation in the industry and results in loyal customers.

·         Increases ROI: The mobile apps are end-to-end tested and released faster. This ensures the increase in ROI as customers get high-quality apps faster

·         Enhances the UI/UX: This test helps testers to test the product from the end-users perspective and assess the overall app experience. Testers check the logic behind the app and ensure it is convenient to follow. Thus it helps to improve the  UI of an app which ultimately enhances UX

 

Conclusion: Mobile apps have become an integral part of human lives especially amid the COVID-19 crisis. The users perform several types of activity such as reading, booking a ticket, watching movies, consulting a doctor, etc. via these mobile apps. It is very essential to ensure that these mobile apps are easy to use, fully functional, and perform as expected on all handheld devices to deliver a great CX. Leverage mobile application testing from a next-gen QA and software testing services provider to achieve high-quality mobile apps.

About the author: I am a technical content writer and I write articles on various IT-related topics. In this article, I have tried to share my views on mobile testing.