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What Is Mobile Automation Testing?
As the name suggests, mobile automation testing is an automated technique that allows implementing the mobile application’s entire lifecycle to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. In automation testing, a tester writes his own script to enhance the productivity of the application.
Mobile automation is basically an automated process of the manual technique. There is no manual involvement in the testing process. It allows a tester to test the application’s load time, speed, performance, and stress point of view. With the help of appropriate automation testing tools, software testers write and execute their test cases and test scripts and then divide them into test suites.
Why Choose Mobile Automation Testing?
In the past few years, we have seen a tremendous increase in the number of smartphone users. With this extensive growth, mobile devices have apparently become the first choice to interact with customers. Mobile devices have amazingly fuelled the growth of the mobile applications in recent years.
The mobile application market has widened up to a large extent that many businesses have started interacting directly through mobile apps. So, to enhance the mobile application’s performance, most of the businesses prefer mobile automation testing. Effective mobile automation testing consequently enhances the performance of mobile applications across all the major platforms, i.e. Android, iOS, and Windows.
However, there are several challenges that come across in the mobile automation testing process. There are certain testing strategies that can be followed by software testers to build remarkable and successful mobile applications. Here are some effective mobile automation testing strategies which you can use while developing an application:
1. Mobile Device Selection
The first and foremost thing to consider before initiating the automation testing is the selection of the mobile device. Choosing a mobile device is the primary step to initiate the testing method as it decides your business’s targeted audience and the market reach to your app. Along with choosing the mobile device, you should also consider a few more things such as:
- Screen Resolution: Try to use mobile devices with different screen sizes and screen resolutions. The user-experience of the mobile app varies from one gadget to another.
- OS Version: The software tester should always test the mobile application on all stable mobile OS versions.
- Form Factors: If a mobile app is compatible with smartphone, it is also expected to run in a similar manner on the tablets as well. So, the software tester should test the mobile app for both form factors.
2. Emulators Or Physical Devices
Apart from the mobile devices, you can also choose among emulators or physical devices. Emulators (Virtual devices) can be only be opted at the initial development stage because of their effectiveness. Emulators are very helpful in an agile development environment. Emulators are cost-effective, whereas mobile devices provide basic application functionality during mobile automation testing.As a software tester, you should not avoid using physical devices altogether, because they help you understand the application behavior in the real scenario. So, for efficient results, it is recommended to use virtual and physical devices, both.
3. Network Connectivity
Network connectivity significantly affects application’s behaviour and rich functionality. So, in order to get the real functionality and to assess the behaviour of the mobile application, it is necessary to test the app in actual network environments. Try connecting with Wi-Fi, 3G, etc. to get the best results. Moreover, there are multiple network tool simulators that are made available to the software testers to test mobile apps in several network speeds, bandwidth limitations, connection drop out, etc. For your business’s growth, it is necessary to deliver consistent performance through your application across multiple network environments.
4. Manual Vs Automated
Automation testing is the key to enhance your mobile application’s performance and behavior, whereas manual testing is a manual process of testing the application. Automation testing can only be performed in several scenarios such as:
- When the scale of regression testing is high
- The mobile application’s lifecycle is long
- The mobile application is growing and emerging
5. Mobile Application Testing On Cloud
Cloud testing is one more effective option for testing mobile applications. Cloud testing is basically a web-based online mobile automation testing method where a software tester can deploy and test the application. Before launching the application, you need to check the application’s behavior and functioning thoroughly. For that purpose, cloud-testing is the easiest and cost-effective way to obtain perfection across different environments. Automation cloud testing also provides real-time testing results that again allows you to detect and analyze the defects while tests are running.
Eventually, we cannot deny the fact that mobile applications have become an undetachable part of our life. As a business or startup, the first and foremost thing to perform is to strategize the procedure of product development. Streamline the procedure and follow the strategy to build a user-friendly mobile application. The strategy for automation testing majorly includes the above-mentioned points, i.e. selection of devices, appropriate utilization of physical devices and emulators, and testing methodologies.
If you are looking to develop a remarkable mobile application for your business, then you can follow these combined automation testing practices. It will help you develop a user-friendly mobile application while matching industry standards.
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