Mobile Application Testing: How to avoid launching a one hit wonder

You’ve developed a web or mobile application and as part of the project your team did a great job at mobile application testing. It works, it’s live, your work is done.

Or is it?

Ensuring your development process integrates robust testing is nothing new, but have you created a plan to maintain your digital product?

When an operating system releases an update, how will it affect your app?

It’s easy to focus efforts, and budget, on building and launching your application. We often say this across our insight articles, but in order for your application to be a true success, you need to keep your app alive.

It can be done through a variety of channels such as updates, new add-ons or even regular marketing campaigns, all of which are ongoing discussions you can have with your project team. The one thing you should not compromise or ignore – is the importance of adopting a mobile assurance program.

Ongoing assurance will minimise bugs and user frustrations, regardless of what device your customers choose to use. It will ensure your app is stable as manufacturers and platforms release updates, all of which will contribute to a more positive customer experience.

Is it worth outsourcing?

If you’ve tested once, surely it gets easier when you need to test again?

To successfully test your application there are a couple of options at your disposal:

• Maintain a library of the most common devices
• Test remotely against real devices using tools such as BrowserStack of Kobiton

Seems fairly straight forward. There are very few development teams that actually maintain the capacity to carry out regular testing. At Indiespring, our Mobile Assurance Program does more than just give you peace of mind. In the long run, it will save you valuable time and money.

How? Well in the first instance, maintaining a collection of devices is extremely costly. Our Mobile Assurance team currently hold 30+ devices that cover a range of modern operating systems, developer betas and OEM user interfaces. All applications are tested across these devices and actionable reports are delivered regularly to the development teams.

Testing remotely can then seem the most cost-effective process to adopt. We’ve often highlighted the importance of maintaining a positive customer experience. Testing remotely does not necessarily need to be ruled out, however it may not highlight real world issues that your users may be coming up against. Teams that do test remotely, often still keep a collection of devices to cover every eventuality.

Whether you hold 5 or 50 devices, the cost can be quite steep, especially as you would also need to factor in the cost of specialist Quality Assurance Testers to not only perform the necessary testing every time a new update is released, but to always be on top of when they occur.

Our mobile assurance testing rig will save you the investment in products and hundreds of hours in time (oh yes, we did the math!)

Still not convinced? Why not give us a call and let’s discuss how we can enable your application to not just survive the endless updates, but to continue to grow and succeed.

Speak to one of our experts: +44 161 660 6756