Top Mobile Testing Challenges And Their Solutions

The extraordinary development of mobile devices has allowed organizations to integrate
them into computing environments. Mobile devices are becoming the direct mode of
conversation for everyone, and thousands of applications are generated daily.

The development of mobile applications has become much more accessible, with mobile
devices and user choices changing significantly. Additionally, mobile application provides
complex functionalities nowadays with limited computing resources. To maintain the quality
and user-friendly nature of the application, it is crucial to ensure that it performs optimally
and delivers a seamless user experience.

This Diversity presents unique challenges that testers and developers must overcome.
Building flawless applications requires strategic planning for mobile application testing and
brings several new challenges.

This article covers the mobile application testing challenges and their solutions to build
a flawless application.

Mobile Testing Challenges and Their Solutions

Mobile Testing requires much effort and time to test applications on all the available
platforms. Various approaches are available for mobile testing, but the essential thing is to
build an application that will fulfill user expectations.

We will discuss the top mobile testing challenges and their most accessible solutions. Here
are the top Challenges and their solutions:

1. Wide Range of Devices

The companies manufacture thousands of devices, and the market of these devices is
unbelievable such as mobiles, tabs, handsets, and more. The quantity of the devices
indicted the variety of environments the application faces, and cross-testing over these many
devices becomes unrealistically large.

The real challenge is that after devouring a lot of time testing on one device, the QA or
development team cannot guarantee that the tested application works on other devices. The
same thing also applies when the other devices belong to the same product family because
CPU, Memory, OS optimization, and Screen resolution could also be different in the same
product family.

Solution:-

You can solve this issue by implementing the below testing or development practices.

• Using the cloud-based mobile testing

• Through Android emulators and OS simulators.
  • Another best approach is focusing on 5-10 mobile devices and versions with an active user base and getting the information about the user base using Fabric, google analytics or a personal survey.

Application compatibility with mobile devices will ensure that it works with most devices.
Organizations must use an extensive infrastructure of mobile testing solutions for popular
devices. However, the above points are better solutions for startups and small companies
because building testing infrastructure will cost money and maintenance.

2. Variety of Screen Sizes

Manufacturing companies nowadays develop devices with various screen sizes to attract
customers; even many companies develop variants of the same model with different screen
sizes and resolutions. Hence the device’s screen sizes create another big challenge for
developers and testers to build an application compatible with every Screen size.

The primary challenge with screen sizes is that if anything goes wrong, it will directly impact
the User Interface and User Experience. Even if your application works seamlessly and well
with one screen size, it doesn’t guarantee that it will not break on other screen sizes. So it
becomes necessary to test your application on different screen sizes before completing the
testing.

Building an application with adaptability, flexibility, and cross-browser support will solve this
challenge for some part, but let’s talk about other available solutions to resolve the screen
size issues.

Solution:-

Developing the application with a flexible layout is vital to ensure that the application
behaves smoothly on different screen sizes. There are many best practices and guidelines
for creating a dynamic design. For web apps, you should also ensure that your code is
responsive and use cross-browser testing tools to test the responsiveness of your
application.

• Use responsiveness to resize or adjust your applications for multiple screen sizes to maintain consistency.
  • Using dynamic elements and layouts while developing and designing apps.
    • Use simulators and emulators for testing different devices.

You can also divide the screen sizes into significant categories to test and develop
applications according to your target audience.

Categorized screen sizes:-

• 0″ — 5″ size
  • 5″ — 5.5″ size
    • 5.5″ — 6″ size
      • 6″ — 7″ size

3. Operating Systems and Their Versions

Similar to the screen sizes, Many devices come with different operating systems, and even
the same OS shares many different versions. Manufacturers build devices with different OS
and versions for the same product family to lure customers.

Operating systems are the core engine of devices and help to run the application on the
device. There are various types of OS available with many versions, such as iOS, android,
blackberry, Tizen, and many more. Testing on various OS and their version will cost a lot of
time and money, and even the app running flawlessly on an Operating system does not
guarantee that it works with a different version of The same OS.

As a developer or tester, you must ensure your application works with every OS and version
because the User could be using your application on any Operating system or version. And
this becomes a painful challenge for the QA tester, developer, and the whole testing team.

Solution:-

The best solution to resolve this challenge is to use cross-device testing. Cross-device
testing helps you analyze the stability of the mobile app across different browsers (through
cross-browser testing) and operating systems. It also simplifies mobile app testing and
prepares you for any misfortunes.

Additionally, if your building is a web-based mobile application, you must consider the
browser version on the top of the OS and their version.

4. User Experience and Performance

The success of an application depends on how strongly the application can fulfill user
requirements with a creative, specific user interface and required functionality. On the other
hand, as a developer, you must ensure that all the needed features are added to the
application. However, complex functionality makes your application slow and takes a high
response time.

This would mean slow performance, which will cost you a lot because the such thing will
bring down the user experience. And the user has no patience, so they will switch toward
competitor applications.

Hence, performance is an important and big challenge for developers and testers to
overcome. The mobile app testing teams consistently race against time and other
probabilities to ensure the user experience is not compromised.

Solution:-

You can solve performance issues by implementing the below testing or development
practices.

• The launch time should be as minimum as possible.
  • Screen rendering time should be less.
    • Avoid using high animations.
      • Simple but interactive user interface

5. Network Connection issues

The network has a direct effect on the behavior of mobile applications. Most of the
applications we use daily communicate with servers and require a good network connection.
There are cases when users switch network operators and move from one place to another
where network speed drops suddenly. Moreover, most applications expect a fast Wi-Fi or a
network connection, but it is also essential to test the application response with a 2G or slow
network.

Another issue with the mobile network is data communication. Transferring data between the
server and the mobile device with a slower network becomes problematic when an
application struggles with 3G.

Network bandwidth testing plays a meaningful role in mobile testing, and the mobile testing
process cannot be considered complete without it.

Users desire high-speed applications that the developer team must provide. But The main
challenge is that end-users might be on a slower network and expect the application to work
faster. An app must be tested and optimized to suit the bandwidth of various users and will
stay consistent during the exchange of information between the end user and the server.

Solution:-

You can solve network issues by implementing the below testing or development practices.

• The application should be tested with various network bands at least once.
  • Only load necessary resources with a slower network.

Conclusion

The main aim before starting mobile testing is to build an effective testing strategy for
delivering reliable, high-performing, flawless applications that conforms to the market
standards and offers the best creative solution to the users. Testing the application on all the
available devices is an unrealistic goal and costs a lot of time and money. It’s better to plan
your testing strategy according to your target audience, business goal, and the context
related to the application.

Select the best reasonable practices, devices, emulators, and other needed things for testing
according to your plan and needs. We cannot cover everything, but be specific about your testing plan.

Below are a few tips for mobile testing:

• Select the top 5-10 devices according to your target audience.
  • Use analytics or survey to choose the mobile device and OS version.
    • Include one device for every screen size range
      • Test your app with different network bands.

We cannot build an application for every specific device. Still, we must ensure that the
mobile application is consistent and dynamic to support available devices, networks, and OS
for all the end users.