Mobile

Please find here some tips, which may help you progress in the field of Mobile Appli­ca­tion Testing.

1. Basics of Soft­ware Testing:-

Whether you are an expe­ri­enced or a fresher in this field, knowl­edge of Soft­ware Test­ing basics is essen­tial in any kind of test­ing you per­form. Even if you are start­ing your car­rier as a Mobile Apps Tester, you need to know all the soft­ware test­ing prin­ci­ples, Soft­ware Test­ing Tech­niques, Types of Soft­ware Test­ing, Objec­tive of Test­ing and other basics in Soft­ware Test­ing. There are many sites and resources avail­able on inter­net, which can guide you about the same. If you are just start­ing your car­rier in this field, don’t bother to accu­mu­late all the com­pli­cated the­o­ries of soft­ware test­ing in your mind at once. Go step-by-step. It is strongly rec­om­mended to undergo some good train­ing pro­gram in soft­ware test­ing which can give you some prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence of test­ing. Please avoid mug­ging com­pli­cated test­ing theories.
         2. Basics of Telecom:-
As you have decided to work in Mobile Domain, know­ing the Tele­com basics will always give you an added advan­tage. Mobile Apps Test­ing is not just about test­ing of mobile prod­uct or appli­ca­tion. You will surely get an advan­tage if you are aware of other things in this domain which revolves around Mobile prod­ucts test­ing. 2G, 3G, CDMA, GPRS, GSM, HSCSD, SIM, SMS, WAP are some basic things  of tele­com that you should be aware of. You can check out some more details about the same here .
       3.  Aware­ness about Mobile OS/Platforms:-
There are many Mobile OS/Platforms present in the mar­ket. Android, iOS( iPhone), Black­berry OS(RIM), J2ME, Sym­bian, Palm, Win­dows phone, Sam­sung Bada , Nokia Meego and so on. It is very impor­tant to have knowl­edge about these Mobile OS/Platforms as a Mobile Apps Tester. Aware­ness about the capa­bil­i­ties and lim­i­ta­tions of these plat­forms give you con­fi­dence to dif­fer­en­ti­ate appli­ca­tion bug with platform/OS lim­i­ta­tions. You may find some more details about Mobile Oper­at­ing Sys­tems here .
      4.   Get famil­iar with your own  Mobile Phone:-
I am sure many of you must not even be com­pletely aware of which Mobile Hand­set model you are using, what is the OS in it and what is the soft­ware ver­sion your phone is hav­ing. If you are a begin­ner, just start explor­ing your own cell phone. Just open up and try using inter­net on your Smart­phone. Use Wi-Fi, GPRS. Check out how you can for­mat or per­form Fac­tory reset on your device (Be careful).Check what is the IMEI num­ber of your phone. Try to upgrade OS ver­sion of your Android device. Exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent set­tings and user per­mis­sions on your phone.  In short, be famil­iar with all the fea­tures and func­tions of your mobile hand­set and it will surely help you to dig out more sce­nar­ios while test­ing any mobile app or any mobile Hand­set you are given to test .
       5.  Get aware of Test­ing in Mobile Domain:-
When we talk about test­ing in Mobile domain, it is not only con­fined to Mobile Apps, but also includes mobile hand­set and mobile web­site testing.

• Down­load­able Mobile Appli­ca­tion Test­ing: — Some appli­ca­tions come pre-installed  in mobile hand­set while some mobile appli­ca­tions are down­load­able from dif­fer­ent mobile appli­ca­tion stores(Apple App store, Android Mar­ket, Get­jar, Nokia Ovi Store, Black­berry  App world etc.). Apart from con­ven­tional Func­tional and UI test­ing, you may need to test your appli­ca­tion against the sub­mis­sion cri­te­ria and guide­lines pro­vided by these Appli­ca­tion stores. As said ear­lier, tester’s role here should not be only func­tional test­ing of mobile app, but also to make sure your appli­ca­tion adheres to the guide­lines pro­vided by these mobile app stores.

• Mobile Hand­set Test­ing:-Sim­i­lar to Orga­ni­za­tions that develop third party down­load­able mobile appli­ca­tions, there are many com­pa­nies that develop com­plete mobile hand­set. A mobile QA here may need to test native appli­ca­tions or fea­tures that are avail­able in the phone. SMS, MMS, Voice Call, MMS, Phone­book, Cal­cu­la­tor, Blue­tooth and other mobile fea­tures. It also includes Mul­ti­me­dia (Cam­era, Video, Media player, ring­tones) and Mobile Pro­to­col stack testing.

• Mobile Web­site Test­ing (WAP Sites):-Unlike down­load­able mobile appli­ca­tions, mobile web­sites can be accessed via browser. No down­load involved. Test­ing of Mobile WAP sites has its own chal­lenges. Proper nav­i­ga­tion, good user inter­faces (design), secu­rity, per­for­mance and mobile browser com­pat­i­bil­ity are impor­tant areas.

  6.  Get Aware of Types of Mobile Apps Testing:-
Sim­i­lar to gen­eral Soft­ware Test­ing, Mobile Soft­ware Test­ing also includes:-

• User Inter­face Test­ing (Color scheme, Menu styles, Con­sis­tency of UI over var­i­ous Devices)
• Func­tional Test­ing (Test­ing core func­tion­al­ity of Mobile App as per specification)
• Per­for­mance & Stress Test­ing [Behav­ior of Mobile Appli­ca­tion in Low resources(Memory/Space), Behav­ior of mobile web­site when many mobile user simul­ta­ne­ously access mobile website)]
• Usabil­ity Test­ing (Test­ing of usabil­ity aspects of Mobile Apps)

Apart from above men­tioned test­ing types, some key test­ing types may include the following.

• Test­ing for Com­pat­i­bil­ity:-Test­ing the com­pat­i­bil­ity of your appli­ca­tion with native device fea­tures (i.e. To make sure your appli­ca­tion is not ham­per­ing native device functionality)
• Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Com­pli­ance Test­ing:-For down­load­able mobile appli­ca­tions, there are var­i­ous Third party Mobile Qual­ity Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram for var­i­ous plat­forms. True Brew Test­ing(for BREW Apps), Java Ver­i­fied pro­gram (for J2ME apps), Sym­bian Signed Test Cri­te­ria (for Sym­bian Apps) are some exam­ples. Apart from reg­u­lar func­tional test­ing, you may need to test your appli­ca­tion against the test cases/Testing cri­te­ria pro­vided by these cer­ti­fi­ca­tion processes. How­ever, it depends on your client, whether they want to cer­tify their appli­ca­tion or not.
• Sub­mis­sion Guide­lines Com­pli­ance Test­ing: — The appli­ca­tion needs to adhere to the spec­i­fied sub­mis­sion guide­lines  to pub­lish it in any mobile appli­ca­tion store. Fail­ure to meet these guide­lines may result in rejec­tion of your app on mobile appli­ca­tion stores. For exam­ple fail­ure to com­ply with appli­ca­tion Sub­mis­sion guide­lines for Apple App Store may result in rejec­tion of your app in Apple app store.
• Inter­rup­tion Test­ing (Voice Calls, SMS, Charger, Low mem­ory Noti­fi­ca­tion) while appli­ca­tion is running.
• Mon­key Test­ing: — Con­tin­ual key pad entries via tools to test appli­ca­tion sta­bil­ity with var­i­ous key press events.
• Low Network/No Net­work case Test­ing: — Appli­ca­tion behav­ior when there is no net­work cov­er­age or Low net­work strength.

    7 . Go through the Sam­ple Test Cases for Mobile Application:-
For new­bie in Mobile Test­ing, it is always advis­able to go through some sam­ple test cases for Mobile Apps. Going through the test cases for any mobile appli­ca­tion, gives a com­plete insight of the kind of test­ing con­ducted for Mobile Appli­ca­tion. You may ask your seniors to pro­vide you some Test Suites for any mobile project your orga­ni­za­tion com­pleted ear­lier. How­ever, you can still go through some gen­eral Test Cases for Mobile appli­ca­tion here.
     8.  Explore the Capa­bil­i­ties of Simulator:-
Sim­u­la­tors always play big role when there are no mobile devices avail­able for test­ing. Though Device test­ing is always pre­ferred as it rep­re­sents more likely end user sce­nar­ios, the impor­tance of sim­u­la­tors can­not be ignored. In order to have effec­tive test­ing over Sim­u­la­tor, It is rec­om­mended to explore all the capa­bil­i­ties of Simulator.
    9 . Take Help from Remote Device Access Service–
Due to a large num­ber of devices avail­able in the mar­ket, it is not fea­si­ble to buy a new device every time. At the same time Sim­u­la­tors are not com­pletely reli­able enough to launch a mobile app based on test­ing con­ducted only on sim­u­la­tors. RDA (Remote device ser­vices) can be a good solu­tion to deal with these chal­lenges. The remote device access ser­vices enable access to a live device over the Inter­net. As a Mobile Apps Tester, you should be aware of such ser­vices and should sug­gest your man­agers about the capa­bil­i­ties of such Services.
Some Avail­able RDA Ser­vices are:

• Device Any­where (Paid)
• Per­fecto Mobile (Paid)S
• Nokia RDA (Free, For Sym­bian Phones)

Advan­tages of RDA:

• You don’t need to pur­chase actual device.
• User can select dif­fer­ent Car­ri­ers  e.g.  Ver­i­zon, T-Mobile, AT & T.
• RDAs are more reli­able than sim­u­la­tors as they are real devices.
• Some RDA Ser­vice like Device Any­where also has automa­tion capabilities.

Dis­ad­van­tages of RDA:

• Since you access devices remotely it takes time for any action or key event.
• Some­times the needed device is not avail­able due to prior reservations.
• Higher Ser­vice Cost

     10 .  Explore Tools and Utilities:-
There are many soft­ware tools and util­i­ties avail­able in the mar­ket which may help you in test­ing of your Mobile Appli­ca­tion effec­tively. Some of these tools are avail­able in SDKs itself. How­ever you may still dig out the inter­net for such tools on var­i­ous platforms.

• Tools to check Bat­tery Con­sump­tion while your app is run­ning. E.g. Nokia Energy Pro­filer.
• Tools/Software to cap­ture screen­shot: — There are many tools avail­able for var­i­ous mobile plat­forms to cap­ture screen­shot from device itself. E.g Screen­shot tool for Sym­bian S60 Devices.
• Tools to Gen­er­ate dummy files to test behav­ior of mobile app at Low EFS. e.g. Max­filecnt util­ity from QUALCOMM for BREW mobile apps,Fill Device Mem­ory Lite for Android apps.
• Tools to Gen­er­ate Ran­dom key events. e.g. Mon­key tool(Android), BREW Grinder(BREW), Hop­per Test Tool (Win­dows Mobile)
• Tools to Cap­ture Logs. E.g. Apphance for Android.

       11.  Explore Automa­tion Tools for Mobile:-
Along with Man­ual Mobile Test­ing, be ready to explore your poten­tial in Mobile Automa­tion Test­ing as well. Mobile Test­ing is a new field and many automa­tion tools are com­ing in to mar­ket grad­u­ally. If you get any oppor­tu­nity to work on any mobile automa­tion tool, it is well and good. But if you don’t get such oppor­tu­nity, it is bet­ter to explore on your own. Don’t wait for the time when you will get an oppor­tu­nity to work on Mobile Automa­tion Tool. Believe me, sooner or later you will def­i­nitely face a ques­tion from your Inter­viewer– “Have you worked on any Mobile automa­tion tool ? ”
Here are some automa­tion tools avail­able for Mobile Apps Testing:-

• Test­Com­plete
•  M-Eux
• TestQuest Count­down
• Test Quest Pro
• Robot­ium
• VNC
• Sikuli
• Deviceany­where
• FoneMon­key (iPhone)
• Egg­plant (iPhone)
• Testi­Phone( For iPhone Mobile Web)
• IBM® Ratio­nal® Per­for­mance Tester (RPT)
• 3P Mobile
• Expertest
• MITE (A Mobile con­tent test­ing and val­i­da­tion tool for Mobile Web app)

Source:MobileQA