What is Mobile App Testing
Mobile applications play a huge role in influencing your audience’s perspectives. There’s no way you can roll out a bug-ridden app that crashes in the blink of an eye and expect the users to have an outstanding customer experience. After all, the market is saturated with mobile applications serving similar purposes. To stand out, your app shouldn’t just offer basic functionality. It needs to work as expected and be user-friendly, scalable, and secure. Mobile app automation testing across different parameters can ensure that the users love your app.
While manual testing can be tedious and error-prone, mobile testing automation solutions can provide a more robust testing environment. They ramp up the efficiency of your tests, reduce person-hours and labor, cut down costs, and allow you to launch your application on an accelerated timeline. This is exactly why mobile automation testing is needed.
Mobile App Testing Automation Frameworks
When it comes to mobile app automation testing, choosing the right automation framework is crucial to ensure efficiency, accuracy, and scalability. Automation frameworks provide you with the foundation for testing. This helps you streamline the entire process by providing predefined guidelines, tools, and best practices. Here are some popular frameworks to help you get started:
Appium:
It is an open-source framework that supports Android and iOS platforms. Appium is widely used due to its flexibility. It can write tests in various programming languages, such as Java, Python, and Ruby. It also supports parallel testing and integrates well with other tools.
Calabash:
Calabash is known for its simplicity and ease of use. It provides support for automated UI acceptance tests for both Android and iOS. It also integrates seamlessly with Cucumber, allowing you to write tests in natural language.
Espresso:
The Google-developed Espresso is specifically designed for Android app testing. It is highly efficient and provides you with fast feedback. This makes it ideal for agile development environments. Espresso’s synchronization helps your tests be reliable and stable.
XCUITest:
A framework by Apple for iOS app testing. XCUITest integrates perfectly with Xcode and offers robust features for testing iOS applications. It supports Swift and Objective-C, making it a preferred choice for iOS developers.
Robotium:
Often referred to as the “Selenium for Android,” Robotium is a popular choice for testing native and hybrid Android applications. It is known for its ease of use and the ability to write powerful test cases with minimal effort.
Key things to consider before starting mobile app testing automation
We’ve condensed four different factors that you need to consider before you start your mobile app automation testing. These factors will let you know how to do automation testing for mobile applications:
Defining the scope of the tests
Without defining the scope and coverage of the tests, your mobile test automation strategy will be no better than a blind shot in the dark. Many of the tests are complex and require properly laid down guidelines to function effectively.
Make sure your test scope isn’t limited to just functionality. Your focus should also be on areas such as memory usage, device compatibility, and database.
Choosing the right test solution to work with
The solution you choose will have a massive impact on your development cycle and delivery time. An unsuitable solution can cause unsolicited delays without guaranteeing that your application will be in solid working condition.
Before you finalize your test automation solution, look for the crucial features such as:
- No-code test automation
- Cross-platform compatibility
- Parallel testing
- Code reusability
- Multiple device testing compatibilities
- Easy integration with other tools
- Multiple framework support
- Intuitive reporting
While mapping out the solution’s capabilities with your testing goals, do not forget to work out the final costs, including overheads and resource allocation costs. You do not want to be stuck with a pricey solution with poor ROI.
Checking the adaptability of the test automation solution
The solution that you choose should be compatible with the latest test practices and frameworks. It should also be able to integrate seamlessly with other tools. A comprehensive automation solution will perform equally well across browsers, platforms, and devices. So often, companies end up overhauling their entire IT infrastructure to integrate an automation tool. This adds to the overall costs, eats into the company’s bottom line, and reduces ROI. But a futuristic, well-designed solution negates this issue.
Having a proof of concept (POC)
A POC is an underrated factor that most companies ignore when beginning their test automation of mobile apps. A proof of concept can effectively nullify most risks associated with test automation. Once you build a POC, you can document all your requirements and map them to your preferred automation solution. This will clarify what tests you’ll need to run, what frameworks you need to use, and whether or not your automation solution will support all of them.
Strategy to Automate Mobile App Testing Using AI
AI mobile testing can significantly boost efficiency, accuracy, and coverage. These strategies can help you effectively implement AI in your mobile app testing:
1. Define Clear Objectives: Set specific goals for AI-driven automation. Decide if it will be used to reduce testing time, improve test coverage, or enhance test accuracy. Clear goals will guide your strategy and help measure the success of AI implementation.
2. Choose the Right Tools: Select AI-powered testing tools like Test.ai, Applitools, and Mabl. These tools offer machine learning, predictive analytics, and natural language processing. Such features can act like superpowers.
3. Integrate with Existing Processes: Ensure AI tools integrate with your current CI/CD pipeline, version control systems, and test management tools for seamless operation.
4. Generate Test Cases with AI: Use machine learning to automatically generate test cases based on historical data and user behavior. This will ensure relevant and comprehensive scenarios.
5. Optimize Test Maintenance: Use AI to identify obsolete or redundant test cases and suggest optimizations. This will improve efficiency and effectiveness.
6. Predictive Analytics: Use AI-driven predictive analytics to forecast potential issues based on historical data, allowing for proactive risk mitigation.
7. AI-Powered Exploratory Testing: Enhance coverage with AI tools that autonomously perform exploratory testing, identifying hidden defects.
8. Monitor and Analyze Results: Use advanced analytics to gain insights into test performance and defect trends. This will help you continuously refine your AI models.
9. Foster Collaboration: Encourage collaboration between developers, testers, and stakeholders. You will reach your business goals faster this way.
10. Evolve With AI: Stay updated with AI advancements. Regularly review your strategy to stay relevant to the latest technologies.
Executing these steps can help you achieve efficient, comprehensive, and high-quality mobile app testing.
Top Mobile App Automation Tools
Choosing the right mobile app automation tool is crucial for ensuring your application’s quality, functionality, and user experience. Here are some of the top mobile app automation tools to consider:
1. Avo Assure:
A no-code test automation solution that supports end-to-end testing for mobile applications. Its AI mobile testing feature allows you to auto-generate tests, rapidly build and scale test cases, and integrate seamlessly with other tools in its intuitive interface. You can eliminate errors, expand test coverage, and accelerate testing. If you are an enterprise looking to enhance your QA process with AI-driven capabilities, this is the one for you.
2. Applitools:
Applitools specializes in visual testing and monitoring. It uses AI to ensure that the visual appearance of your app remains consistent across different devices and platforms. It integrates with various automation frameworks and CI/CD pipelines. It integrates seamlessly with various automation frameworks and CI/CD pipelines, making it ideal for maintaining visual consistency.
3. Test.ai:
Test.ai utilizes machine learning to automate the testing of mobile applications. It focuses on UI and functional testing and provides automated tests that adapt as the application evolves. This adaptability reduces manual intervention, making the testing process more efficient. Additionally, Test.ai excels in identifying user interface issues early, ensuring a more polished end product.
The Future of Automated Mobile Test Management
The future of mobile test management will leverage AI and machine learning for smarter test automation, integrate no-code tools for accessibility, and enhance continuous testing within CI/CD pipelines. Expect increased cross-platform and cloud-based testing, improved collaboration, security compliance, and a focus on user experience and performance to ensure high-quality mobile applications.
Conclusion
Test automation is crucial to ensure timely and high-quality delivery of your mobile applications. However, without the right solution, achieving the desired results could be a challenge. Avo Assure offers all the capabilities for you to achieve end-to-end, no-code test automation. It enables you to auto-generate tests, rapidly build and scale test cases, visualize the testing landscape, eliminate errors, and expand test coverage with its intuitive, powerful, and resilient platform.
Avo Assure has helped enterprises reimagine their QA process. For instance, Avo Assure has helped a Fortune 500 manufacturer get to the market 5X faster.
To learn more about what Avo Assure can do for you, book a demo today.
