Introduction to Mobile Testing

Mobile expert, David Dang, shares an introduction to mobile testing and effective strategies for utilizing mobile analytics.

“When starting with mobile testing you should first ask yourself, what devices are my users using most? Where does the application fit into these devices? What are functionalities are the users using most?” – mobile expert, David Dang

Before you jump into testing you want to start with the mobile analytics to get a better understanding of the behavior of your users. i.e. if you have a mobile website, native app, or a hybrid app from a mobile phone or tablet, you would want to know what the functionalities of it is. Most companies who do mobile development have analytics embedded in their code that measures and collects data on what the users are doing and how they interact with your mobile site or app.

For example, when working with an ecommerce company, our first task was to identify which mobile devices were being utilized to help us understand which devices we should use to complete the mobile testing efforts with as well as the functionalities that need to be tested most heavily. To do so, we took these questions to the development team to further analyze mobile analytics (i.e. google analytics). Based on this scenario the analytics revealed:

• Over 70% of our users were Android users
• About 29% were IOS users
• And, another 1-.5% were Windows users

But, as we dug further into the analytics we found that:

• About 80% of the “checkout” was completed by IOS users*****
• 19% belonged to Android users

In other words, the aspect that holds the most importance for these testing efforts would be the devices used to complete the highest checkout rate, not the most popular device used overall. The main goal is the checkout rate in which the users actually purchase something.

“At first glance, many may think that because most of your users belong to Android that you should test more heavily on Android, when in reality the IOS devices is what your main focus should be on, as it is bringing in the most monetary traction.” – mobile expert, David Dang

There is a vast majority of devices and platforms to cover in mobile testing; you can’t do it all, so you need to identify the key performance indicators before you begin your mobile endeavors.

Mobile analytics portray:

• Percentage of user visits
• Different devices/platforms used by visitors (iPad, iPhone, etc.)
• What the category focus/the functionalities with in the application where the vast majority of your users are navigating to (i.e. art & environment, followed by health & beauty)

But, what do you do if you have a brand new app or website and don’t have any analytics collected on it yet?

If you can’t rely on mobile analytics look into the industry trends:

• Make sure to take the area of market into consideration, i.e. it is a global app or a U.S. based app?
• Look into the manufacturer you need to cover
• Look at the OS distribution

Mobile Testing Recap:

• Don’t get overwhelmed with mobile device selection
• Use as much mobile analytics as you can to determine mobile strategies for testing
• Dig into mobile trends to save time in the future
• Utilize analytics to determine exact devices needed and the functionalities you should cover first
• If you don’t have analytics focus on the current market trends

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