How to Build an End-to-End Mobile Test Plan?

You are trying to make an online purchase on your mobile using web browser, have entered the payment details and payment is being processed but then the screen goes blank! You wait for sometime and are nervous thinking whether payment is through or not. What could possibly have gone wrong here?
Mobile technology is changing the way people use their mobile phones, and mobile devices are constantly evolving. Their demand on the market keeps growing higher with each coming day, paving the way for mobile developers and designers to come up with new and improved types of apps with better performance, user experience and efficiency than before.

With an endless number of mobile applications constantly being introduced to the market, the usage of mobile devices grows even bigger. There are now apps for almost anything, including personal banking, business management, financial advice, shopping, healthcare management and pretty much any type of service you can think of. With the ever-growing demand for mobile apps, it is of utmost importance that mobile developers implement all the critical features for meeting the users’ needs and making the apps as functional as possible.

In order for them to achieve that, they need to test mobile apps and verify their software systems to ensure their performance is impeccable and that they work as intended. The best approach to the validation of mobile applications is to conduct an end-to-end test plan.

What Exactly Is an End-to-End Mobile Test?

An end-to-end mobile test is the process of verifying a software system from its beginning to its end. A proper end-to-end mobile test plan involves verification during initial testing of a mobile application, as well as during regression testing, as a way to make sure the application is working properly after certain changes have been made.

If some of the subsystems of a software are not tested properly, the risk of an entire software system collapsing is higher, because if a subsystem fails, the whole software will fail as well. This is exactly why conducting this plan is of critical importance for the functionality and success of each and every mobile application.

A proper end-to-end mobile test plan ensures that the tested applications will function as planned on various devices with different screen sizes, resolutions, operating systems and internal hardware, as well as on different carrier networks.

The Strategies for Mobile Testing

When building an end-to-end mobile test plan, you need to consider a particular set of fundamental things and implement testing strategies to ensure the tested applications meet the users’ needs. You need to focus on the app features and its components, as well as on sequence, timing and data conditions. Apart from these basic considerations, you need to focus on different test cases of the applications. Take a look at all the things you need to consider in your quality assurance strategy in order to build an effective end-to-end mobile test plan and ensure the tested mobile apps work as intended.

Device Testing

There are a lot of different mobile devices on the market and you need to know exactly which of them your application will be supported on. In order to get many customers to use your application, it is obvious that you should make your app optimized for as many different devices with various screen sizes as possible.

Since there are so many of them, it is a fact that not all of them will support your app, but having a clear policy on the exact devices your app supports will greatly help you conduct app testing, as you will know which supporting devices to test the app against.

Operating System Versions Testing

The testing of the functionality of mobile applications in different operating systems is crucial for the performance of those apps. You need to have a clear policy on which operating systems and their versions your app will support. If you first need to decide whether your app will support iOS or Android operating systems, it’s better to go with iOS, since it has only 3 supported versions of the operating system. On the other hand, Android has 7 different versions of the operating system that are available in the US alone.

Therefore, it is vital that you establish a policy that clearly states which versions of iOS or Android (or both) operating systems your mobile application will support, so that you can easily test every new feature of the app in the proper operating system versions to ensure it functions properly.

Carriers and Network Connectivity Testing

There are a lot of carriers that provide quite a different set of connectivity options to customers, so another type of mobile testing you need to conduct is carrier testing, so that you can gain an insight into your mobile app performance according to different types of connection your users have.

The performance of your mobile app may differ from one carrier to the next and some of its features may not even work with some of the carriers, so it is crucial to do a test to see how the application will behave in case connectivity is lost, for instance. You also need to test what will happen to the application if network connectivity shifts from 4G to 1G, for example. Therefore, test your app on the mobile communication standards of 3G, 4G and LTE in order to establish its performance and improve it if need be.

Interrupt Conditions Testing

This test is extremely important for every mobile app, as it tests one of the most relevant feature to every mobile app user. Interrupt conditions represent anything that can interrupt users while they’re using the app, including text messages and incoming calls or notifications.

The sad truth is that many companies fail to address interrupt conditions, resulting in their apps automatically taking the users back to the main screen of the app when they return to it after their interruption or result in the apps suddenly stopping completely. It can be very frustrating, not to mention it can lead to those companies losing a lot of customers. Therefore, make sure you test how your app behaves when interruptions occur, so that you can take proper actions to improve its performance and ensure your customers are satisfied.

Security Testing

Security testing is, without a doubt, the most important type of test you need to conduct when you are verifying your mobile application. It is an absolute must-have, since you need to ensure your customers’ personal information doesn’t get compromised or stolen.

According to the recent study, most popular mobile apps have been hacked in some way or other, and 90% of the apps tested for vulnerability assessments had at least two security vulnerabilities. What’s more alarming is that 50% of companies don’t dedicate even the smallest part of their budget to security testing.

When testing your mobile app in terms of security, you need to test data flow vulnerability, meaning you need to check and see where the users’ personal information is being stored and ensure that it’s encrypted and sent over secure channels, as well as make sure it’s not saved on the users’ mobile devices. You also need to test your app for potential data leakage and make sure that all the web data, that is, the data going to and coming from your app to the server, is protected.

Having a good testing strategy that you will implement in your end-to-end mobile test plan is the absolute key for the success of your mobile application. If you conduct these tests properly, you will succeed in having a bug-free mobile app that your customers will absolutely love.

Finoit has developed over 100 Ecommerce sites and marketplaces, and over 50 mobile commerce apps. For any question or requirement, please contact us on [email protected]