Testing Checklist: How To Test A Mobile App [#infographic]
By Phillip Lew
What’s one of the inevitable side effects of living in a world where technology makes practically everything accessible almost instantly?
We’ve developed a low tolerance for errors. We’ve come to expect that the mobile apps we use to chat, shop, look up information, or otherwise entertain ourselves will always work whenever we need them. Compared to desktop computers, mobile operating systems have emphasized reliability. As a result, we have very little patience for mobile apps that don’t provide flawless functionality.
Only 16 percent of smartphone users will try to use an app if it fails to work twice. For businesses that rely on a mobile app to engage with customers, this is sobering news. Customers aren’t willing to accept the idea that an app may be buggy or provide them with a less-than-optimal user experience.
There are so many other options available in the mobile app landscape that they won’t hesitate to find an app that can deliver the functionality they want – even if it’s with an unfamiliar brand. For all these reasons, diligently testing a mobile app before it is released to the public is absolutely essential.
There’s much more to testing a mobile app than tapping on the icon and making sure it starts – although that’s certainly one of the biggest concerns. Testing a mobile app has to be undertaken with the same level of care as testing a car. It needs to be put through its paces and pushed to its limits to ensure that it will be able to handle virtually anything done by a user. There can be no assumptions that a user won’t try to do something in the app – every possibility has to be explored and verified.
The expectations for mobile apps have never been higher, and customers won’t be patient with an app that crashes when the phone is plugged in, or seems to become unresponsive when processing a command. Whether you try your hand at a DIY app-building service or sign up with a professional developer, you need to know what to look for when testing your app. Use this checklist to look for possible errors that could lead to an unsuccessful app launch.
Phillip Lew is Chief Executive Officer at XBOSoft, a software testing company. He oversees strategy, operations, and business development through his expertise as a software engineer since founding the company in 2006. Lew holds a PMP certification and a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from Beihang University.