Modern mobile applications (based on iPhone OS, Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian OS) cover the whole spectrum of necessary services, help to communicate and learn about the world, to gain knowledge and to have fun, of course.
The Main Differences of Mobile Applications
Mobile applications differ from their desktop counterparts, and so it is worth spending some time to consider the question of what factors determine their specificity.
To succeed in testing of mobile applications, it is important to understand well what actually represent mobile devices and how they differ from desktop and portable computers, which also interact with users.
The most significant differences between mobile applications and desktop applications is probably in the fact of how people use them.
Imagine that you sit at your computer – and what you are doing during this?
If you are in the largest category of users, then you use computer mainly for the following tasks: browse web pages, work with documents (text documents, spreadsheets, graphics processing) and communication (e-mail, instant messaging and so on).
Work of user with the mobile application contains of short interaction sessions that are either interrupted from the outside or self generate an interrupt of the session. Excellent illustration of this is the typical practice of using modern mobile phones. When you make a phone call or send a text SMS-message, your subscriber receives an interrupt signal, if you receive call or SMS-messages, your work is interrupted.
In addition, applications for mobile devices own pronounced specialization that provides the most convenient access to a limited set of specific features for user.
Because the control of mobile devices is done most often by the one hand and with a small screen, it is important to provide users features of rapid identification and quickly find needed information or resources.
Ability to quickly navigate within small set of key resources is an important indicator of the quality of development and testing of mobile applications.
How to Test Mobile Applications?
Testing of applications for mobile phones, smartphones and PDAs includes automated and manual testing on a number of emulators and real devices.
Automated testing includes the following types:
• Stress testing;
• Performance testing (to simulate the call for incoming messages, low battery, network failures, etc.);
Manual testing involves the following types:
• Functional testing;
• Usability testing;
• Graphical user interface testing.