Delivering great experiences to users on mobile and web apps is challenging, thanks to the wide range of mobile devices. It is crucial for the testers and developers to adopt efficient testing practices to cater to the varying needs of the users. QA teams and developers must consult the mobile app testing checklist to ensure that their app runs smoothly without any hiccups.
Nowadays, to make apps responsive across platforms, codes from individual developers should be put through automated tests before combining them into the main branch. It usually verifies and cleans code from the smallest units so that minimal bugs appear. Continuous testing is also an integral component of the CI/CD pipeline. Here are some strategies to approach continuous testing for web and mobile apps.
What is Continuous Testing?
The best way to ensure that code and configurations are working is to test them thoroughly. That’s why we require continuous testing along with a mobile app testing checklist. In the modern and agile testing approach, continuous testing is becoming the new normal. Moreover, the developers are equipped with low-friction testing capabilities to test any new or updated code.
Although continuous testing has become a standard practice, it comes with unique challenges. It is a key component of mobile and web app development as it offers feedback to testers to improve the code. However, your QA team should support it with a robust test automation infrastructure to make sure that things are working properly.
What are the Benefits of Continuous Testing?
Detection of Bugs
Continuous testing allows your QA team to identify bugs and issues early in the process of development. In other words, when you detect bugs early, there will be minimal chances of severe defects cropping up after the app’s release.
Faster Time to Market
There is no denying that the app development market is pretty competitive. One of the best ways to release mobile and web apps faster is by leveraging continuous testing processes. Moreover, your QA team and developers should integrate continuous testing with the CI/CD pipeline for faster results.
Extensive Coverage
Another benefit of implementing continuous testing is that it offers extensive test coverage. It means that various aspects of the application are tested comprehensively. Your users can operate the app without facing any major issues.
Strategies to Approach Continuous Testing for Web and Mobile Apps
You should be aware of the strategies to approach continuous testing for web and mobile apps. Listed are the best strategies to ensure that your continuous testing is successful.
Define the Tests Early
It is crucial to define tests early to ensure adequate visibility. The utter lack of clear requirements can result in wasted time and delays. Nowadays, developers and QA teams are leveraging behavior-driven development and acceptance test-driven development to document and communicate the test results. Moreover, it is crucial that the test cases are properly defined to allow continuous testing at all stages of app development.
Run Tests Early in the Development Process
It is important to conduct tests earlier in the development cycle. But at the same time, you should continue to test your app through production and post-production processes. On the other hand, continuous monitoring should be implemented to make the app robust.
Parallel Tests
It is important to conduct tests parallelly to streamline the overall app testing time. It typically involves running multiple tests simultaneously and decreasing the overall test execution time. Moreover, if you are working with large test suites, it is essential to run parallel tests.
Optimize the Testing Processes and Test Coverage
Besides working with the best mobile app testing tools, you should always focus on optimizing the testing processes and test coverage. The visual models allow various paths to be explored and streamlined so that only your tests offer the maximum coverage. It also helps in eliminating unnecessary testing. It is also suggested that you should import the test cases and eliminate duplicates.
Obtain the Right Test Data
One of the key reasons behind delays in app release cycles is the inability of your QA team to obtain robust test data. To precisely test the newer functionalities of the app, test data should correlate to what the app will experience during development. If the test data lacks certain testing artifacts, the tests won’t find potential issues.
Comprehending the data models to extract the right data is one of the best ways to approach continuous testing. Note that production data is the best data for testing. However, the data privacy regulations and team silos restrict the extraction of production data. The best way to address this issue is by accessing a healthy test data management tool. It will allow you to copy making data and protect subtle information from the app.
Provide Complete Test Environments
The ability to offer virtual test environments is critical to achieving continuous testing. That’s why your QA team should eliminate the blocks and decrease the wait times by providing complete test environments. CI/CD integrations can help you access the complete test environments. But ensure that these environments are ephemeral.
Dedicated Platform Testing for Network Conditions
If you are developing a mobile app, it is crucial to test its functionality in several types of mobile networks. Usually, mobile applications rely on varying network conditions. So, it is essential to incorporate performance testing that simulates different network speeds. It will ensure that the app performs well irrespective of the network.
Conclusion
Cross-browser testing makes up an integral component of analyzing the functionalities of your web application. It is important to integrate cross-browser testing into continuous testing to recognize and sort out the compatibility issues early on in the process of development.
Besides using the top mobile app testing tools, you should also conduct multi-layer tests. Customary to its name, a multi-layer test comprises unit tests, integration tests, GUI tests, etc. Note that continuous testing is an iterative process and requires continuous improvement. It prioritizes quality and speed which are essential to make your app user-friendly. You should integrate all these strategies in continuous testing to make app development bug-free.
