Five-Step Guide for Mobile App Testing Automation – DZone

The global mobile app market has been growing at more than 11.5% per year and is now worth more than $154.06 billion after the COVID-19 shift toward remote work has increased and time spent online has gone up. With over 10.97 billion mobile connections worldwide, the demand for sophisticated, high-performance B2B and B2C mobile apps is increasing. The main reason for app abandonment is poor user experience. This includes a perplexing UI/UX and an excessive number of bugs. Loading times are slow. 

Continuous testing for mobile applications is required to ensure that a mobile app functions properly on both iOS and Android. In addition, mobile app testing can be difficult, involving numerous platforms, operating systems, and network connections.

This post will walk you through the entire mobile app testing process step by step. Our experience in this field will assist you in avoiding traps and pitfalls. Testing is essential for developing a dependable product. Testing is an essential component of the lifecycle of a mobile application. However, due to the time and effort required to complete the entire cycle of app testing, it is frequently overlooked by developers. A product should be tested at each stage to ensure that it is reliable and enjoyable to use.

In essence, mobile application testing is similar to website testing. 

In this post, we’ll go over all stages of application testing and explain how to test mobile apps.

Step-By-Step Guide to Mobile App Testing Automation

Step 1: Setup Mobile App Automation Testing Goals

Software testing is a crucial step in the development process to ensure that an app will function as intended and be resilient to unforeseen circumstances.

How Can Mobile Apps Be Tested?

The way you develop is similar to how you test mobile applications. To ensure that your applications function properly, you should perform testing frequently during development and maintenance.

As you climb the pyramid, the end user is closer to you. User feedback is a form of testing. The closer you are to the user, the harder it is to automate your testing.

Step 2: Plan Test Cases

The test cases you will use as your project develops are described in the Agile testing matrix/testing quadrants. It’s critical to remember that testing is not a sequential procedure or a step in the product development process. Instead, it’s a crucial component of each Agile sprint.

The crucial test case is:

• Repeated often or is repetitive
• Involves time-consuming data entry
• Subject to human error
• Low risk

Automation is not a good fit for a test case that relies on subjective feedback (such as UI/UX) or involves many steps. Additionally, writing automation code for a test that will only be run once is not worthwhile. You want automation to be helpful because it takes time.

The most typical mobile app testing scenarios that can be automated include unit tests, functional tests, and integration tests.

Step 3: Choose a Test Automation Framework

After determining which test cases you want to automate, you must select the appropriate automation framework. This integrated system establishes automated procedures for your test. 

Let’s examine the top six mobile app testing automation frameworks.

1. Linear Automation Framework

The “record-and-playback model” is another name for this framework, which is very linear and incremental. It’s perfect for straightforward programs or unit tests.

2. Modular-Based Testing Framework

We use a modular testing framework to create scenarios. Greater testing scenarios can be created by combining modules. More significant test scenarios can be created by combining modules.

3. Testing Library Architecture Framework

The modular test framework and this framework are very similar. However, we divide common tasks into functional groups rather than using modules.  After that, functions are kept in a library. Therefore, it is possible to reference this library when writing test cases, simplifying the process.

4. Data-Driven Frameworks 

Data-driven frameworks acknowledge that even though the test may stay the same, the data may change. This framework retrieves data from an external system when testing a functionality like a login.

5. A Framework Driven By Keywords

Table-driven is an alternative name for this framework. It enables the development of table-driven frameworks by coupling external test data with actions kept in a table, like Excel.  However, these frameworks can be time-consuming, even though various test scripts can access the exact keywords.

6. A Hybrid Testing Framework

Two or more of these frameworks are referred to as hybrid frameworks. Teams can then design the ideal test environment, thanks to this.

Step 4: Select the Right Automation Testing Tool

You can write test scripts using one or more of the tests mentioned above in automation frameworks with the aid of mobile automation testing tools. 

A basic understanding of the frameworks can help ensure you get the right tool for the job at hand, even though it is not necessary to thoroughly comprehend them to select the best mobile testing tool.

Mobile Application Testing Checklist

When choosing a mobile app testing tool, you may want to take into account the following factors: 

• OS support
• Type of tests supported (unit tests, regression tests, functional tests, etc.)
• Ease of use, including script-less test creation, clear and in-detail reporting
• Integration with existing CI/CD tools
• Cost and scalability

Step 5: Virtual Devices vs. Real Devices

The hardware and the operating system (OS) will be subject to thorough mobile app testing (device). However, testing mobile devices is logistically impossible due to the wide range of mobile device types and configurations. Even for Apple, there are 14 generations of devices, with multiple models for each generation, so it may be nice to test on actual devices.

Best practices advise testing on at least one of each target device (most recent iOS device, top Android phone, etc.) to be realistic, with the remaining testing being done on virtual devices (known as simulators or emulators). 

With a slight loss in accuracy, virtual devices can mimic many features of actual devices more quickly and cheaply.

Conclusion

The entire application life cycle must include testing for mobile applications. Successful testing guarantees that the system will operate effectively and satisfactorily and that security regulations will be followed.