Mobile Application Software Testing
INTRODUCTION
When a product is built, either a vehicle or a mobile application, how do you know whether it’s working or not? How will developers or manufacturers get to know that the product is fully developed? The answer is testing.
How will teachers come to know what the students have learned from their teaching? Again the answer is testing. I think you got how important testing is everyone’s life? Without testing nothing can be launched into the market.
And in this modern world where smartphones are ruling the whole software industry, everyone, even a small 6-year-old kid, is using at least 5–10 applications per day.
In this scenario, can you just imagine how irritating it would be for a person if an application gets interrupted while it’s run-time? And as a developer do you still believe that users give a good rating for your application?? Obviously no one would give good ratings even it’s UI is good but not working properly. So let me elaborate on this Software testing in detail.
What Is Software Testing?
Software Testing is a process where we cross-check the actual output, of a function, with the expected output. For example, you built a calculator app where your first test case can be 1+1=2, but when you give the inputs 1 and 1 in your app to find the sum but to your surprise, if it comes other than 2 then your app isn’t working good. So testing brings out the hidden bugs which prevent your application to function perfectly.
Why Software Testing?
Many incidents in history tell us the importance of software testing. Softwares used in machinery can also get failed which when released market can cause economic damage for the companies who buy them. Many big firms like Nissan, Starbucks, etc… And you know what, once in April of 1999, a software bug in a military satellite launch worth $1.2 billion was wasted. You now imagine how costly the loss will be if a software isn’t tested. You may think that we aren’t dealing with such a big amount on our mobile applications. But nowadays almost every transaction is happening online.
If the software isn’t developed and tested well then will you dare to use that app and become its first victim? Obviously no, right? So the main reason for testing software, particularly talking on our topic -Mobile application is to check whether it is functioning as we expect it to do or not. If not it is revisited and change the necessary part and make it workable.
Types Of Testing
Testing can be classified into two parts.
- Functional Testing
- Non-functional Testing
Functional Testing
For every software, there will be basic functionalities that it must do. So first and foremost any tester should go with functional testing. Under this category, there are many kinds of testing. Functional testing tells us about what the app will do as a whole. As basic functionalities of an app are categorized under this functional testing, so first a tester should implement functional testing before carrying out the non-functional testing.
Functional testing is not so tough. It can be carried out manually. And there are many types of functional testing that a tester should carry out in this step. I’m mentioning a few of them below:-
- Unit testing
- Smoke Testing
- Sanity Testing
- Integration Testing
- White-box testing
- Black Box testing
- User Acceptance testing
- Regression Testing
This list hasn’t ended here but there are still many more such software testing methods under this category. Even though it is easy to do manually, but still we have functional testing tools in our market. Let me help you to know a few of them.
- Ronex Studio
- Selenium
- QTP
- Soap UI
- JUnit
- Watir
Non-Functional Testing
You may think that functionality testing tests all those things what the app does. But have you ever thought as a developer that your app can handle a large number of users? Have you ever thought that if your app has signup and login and if someone hacks another’s account? So few security testings come under this category. Non-functional checks the scalability, reliability, performance and other non-functional aspects of the software system, in our topic it is a mobile application. Non-functional testing tells us how good the app works.
And there are many types of functional testing that a tester should carry out in this step. Whole purpose of doing non-functional testing is to meet the business expectation. I’m mentioning a few of them below:-
- Load Testing
- Volume Testing
- Stress Testing
- Security Testing
- Installation Testing
- Penetration Testing
- Compatibility Testing
- Migration Testing
- Performance Testing
Non-functional testing is a tough job as compared to functional testing. Manually it consumes a lot of time and also it is tough to achieve the task. So there are many softwares for non-functional testing in the market. I’m mentioning a few of them below for your future reference:-
- JMeter
- Loadster
- Loadrunner
- Loadstorm
- Neoload
- Forecast
- Load Complete
- Webserver Stress Tool
Funny But Truth
There is one type of testing known as monkey testing. Testing the app by giving random inputs is known as monkey testing. Any enthusiast who wants to know whole functionality about the app and starts pressing all buttons and tries giving random inputs and checks whether they are working or not can themselves call as a monkey tester.
Developer And Tester
In recent times testers are in demand. But the one who is good at both developing and testing are in more demand compared to just testers. A few years back the software was tested after the whole development process is finished.
SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). In past SDLCs testing part was placed in the last. That means in those past days of the software development process, the whole app is first developed then the tester takes the charge and does his testing and then if the final product is flawless then it is taken to further step. But if it fails in testing then the product is again sent to the beginning of the process. This was a burden for the developers. Because they had to once again go through the whole enormous code and remove the bugs which came in testing. It is evident that tester comes into existence only after the developer part is completed in our past SDLCs.
But in the new SDLC, testing is placed after every stage. So that pressure on developer gets reduced. After the first stage of development, the tester tests it and sends it further if it is flawless and sends it to the immediately previous step for correction. So that the developer has to go through only a part of the code, which is far better than going through the whole code.
So in present SDLCs both tester and developer should go hand in hand. If the developer himself can test, then problem gets a lot simpler to solve. Hence in the present day, a developer who knows to test too is in more demand than only testers.
Conclusion
Whatever the software is, one should at least do functionality testing. Testing is one of the most important parts of mobile application software development. Finally, I want to conclude that
Develop more apps as much as you can, but don’t forget to test them
Thanking you.
