Mobile App Testing: Best Practices and Strategy

Many application development organizations produce web, server-side and mobile apps for different user scenarios. But the last of the three is clearly a dominant market for end users, as mobile apps rapidly outpace web and server-side application development — a trend that will continue well into the future.

While the figures fluctuate over time, Statista forecasts that global mobile app revenues will top $500 billion for the first time in 2024 and near $1 trillion by the end of the decade. The challenge for software development teams is creating unique applications that customers love, which are thoroughly tested for high usability and performance. Delivering mobile apps that provide a powerful and positive user experience is vital to business success.

For organizations producing mobile and web versions, there are challenges to overcome, including the separation of operations, forming collaborative teams and testing effectively across multiple OS versions, browsers and mobile platforms. These are not easy tasks.

Let’s explore some best practices for testing mobile apps. These mobile testing strategies include effective test planning as well as tips for effective integration and data testing.

What are the best practices for mobile app testing?

Many users prefer web-based applications for professional work and mobile apps for entertainment. For some, the main functionality for internal business is web-based and connected to a mobile app built for customer use.

For example, a medical application might be built on the web for increased security but have multiple integrated mobile apps performing different functions. The application might track patients and ensure labs and appointments meet the patient’s needs. All the internal management occurs on the web app. The mobile app satisfies the needs of patients who sign up for the service and enter the required contact information. Patients can sign paperwork within the mobile app and use it to track when medications are taken, ongoing lab results and other important medical information.

For software testing teams, two different apps means double the work. Web and mobile application testing will entail different activities and considerations. Following best practices for mobile app testing ensures effective test coverage and improved customer satisfaction.

Best practices for mobile app testing include:

• Acknowledging the differences in business purpose and functionality between a web and mobile app.
• Checking data transfer connections, as well as data access and accuracy.
• Verifying the security of sensitive and protected data.
• Comparing mobile and web app behavior side by side through real device testing rather than simulators.
• Paying attention to UI/UX designs for consistent branding, including colors, images and styles.
• Building cross-device testing into your test strategy, covering which platforms, browsers and devices you’ll use.
• Ensuring the test strategy includes relevant testing types.
• Documenting test execution status.
• Validating responsive design.
• Confirming functional consistency between app platforms and versions.

First, the testing and development teams must understand how the apps function and their business purpose. The teams must fully understand how data is accessed and transferred as well as whether mobile apps are hybrid or native. These details are essential for valid test case development and execution. Developing an effective mobile app testing strategy helps ensure test coverage and a high-quality customer experience.

Successful mobile app testing starts with testers understanding the business purpose and functionality of the app. For example, how do the mobile and web apps integrate and interrelate? How do these mobile apps access, transfer and store data? Testers are the essential bridge between the mobile app and its customers. Thus, they must protect customers from poorly designed functionality, inaccessible features, functional defects and a lack of responsive design for usability and performance.

How do you plan a mobile app testing strategy?

Ideally, testers and developers would test every single line of code, third-party system, security and data connectivity within an app. Unfortunately, that’s not practical or even possible from release to release.

Develop a mobile app test strategy in the format that works for your team — be it a formal document, checklist or step-by-step plan. A good mobile app testing strategy balances the need for speed and quality to ensure a positive customer experience.

Include these details in a mobile app testing strategy:

• A testable app architecture that assists testers and developers in creating a greater variety of tests and increasing test coverage efficiency and effectiveness.
• The APIs in use, and which tool will test them.
• The types of testing to perform, as well as those that are executed by external resources.
• The devices required for testing, as well as network type and various levels of connection speed.
• The type of mobile app and supported platforms, whether it’s a hybrid, native iOS or Android.
• All third-party integrations, including data connections and other services, such as messaging and notifications.

Types of mobile app testing include tests developed and executed by both developers and QA professionals. Preventing testing overlap helps improve productivity and identify defects early and often. Many developers create unit or component tests within the code, which enables them to execute the tests each time an application build occurs and quickly identify breaking changes or new defects. The team can also leverage groups of unit tests as automated integration tests that can be executed any time new code is checked into the code base.

Software testers typically focus on developing these types of manual and automated tests for mobile apps:

Keep in mind that the mobile app testing strategy defines which testing types a team will execute. The team might need to make difficult decisions when thorough or complete mobile app test coverage is impossible.

One mobile app testing type to constantly perform is integration, which bolsters app quality by ensuring all the parts and pieces function together as expected. The most severe defects usually occur at integration points — these are the ones that will be found by customers if the testing team does not find them first.

Mobile app integration testing tips

Integration testing is critical for mobile app success, especially when a mobile app and a web app coexist. To continue with the example above, a patient uses a mobile app to track that medication has been taken on a specific date and time and confirm the dosage amount. The patient gets weekly blood tests to measure how well the medication is working and if it’s causing harmful effects. Now, consider if the data entered by the patient or the lab results don’t match between the patient’s mobile app and the web app. Inaccurate data between integrated apps is frighteningly common, and in the case of our medical app, can induce a fretful experience for the end user.

Execute data validation testing as part of testing integration. Testing must determine if there are connectivity failures between the mobile app and the APIs passing data to the database. Sometimes, poor performance is the issue, which causes a delay in updating the app display. Other times, the error might not appear in the UI, but the data fails to be shared or updated. Inaccurate data is a critical defect, one that organizations must protect customers from experiencing.

Exceptional mobile app integration testing also identifies hidden defects in back-end processing or third-party software. For example, if a third-party software component releases an update that changes how SMS messages and notifications are sent, it might trigger a failure if the mobile app functionality relies on specific messaging settings. Customers would then experience a critical defect.

Integration testing also identifies UI/UX errors in consistency between designs. Design problems can include colors, branding and even logos. Inconsistency between web and mobile apps causes lack of trust. Visual recognition and consistency makes for a more user-friendly experience.

Integration testing helps ensure consistent security protocols. Security testing is essential on its own merit, but testers that perform in-depth integration testing can identify details like broken API endpoints. Security protocol differences are especially common when different development teams do not validate security consistently.

Integration testing also identifies mobile app defects that cause poor performance or slow user response times. Performance problems are a great way to lose customers, who quickly become frustrated by poor mobile app performance.

Real-world mobile app testing

Mobile apps are at the forefront of application development. For QA and engineering leaders scaling testing across large, distributed user bases, delivering a high-quality mobile experience is essential. Customers expect high performance speed, full functionality and the ability to be productive. And one of the best ways to validate that is by turning to those customers directly.

Real-world testing with Applause validates mobile apps on real devices and in real locations to capture the diverse scenarios and environments that represent your actual user base. Applause digital quality services reveal crucial insights about how your app performs on various types of hardware, network conditions and operating system versions, helping you identify and rectify issues that might otherwise go unnoticed until your app is in the hands of your users.

Build a positive brand image with loyal customers app after app by producing high-quality applications. Applause’s community of more than 1.5 million experts and end users gives you the diverse pool needed for comprehensive mobile app testing coverage, backed by test automation services that help you scale it. Learn more today.