High-Quality App Development in a Contemporary World
In today's fast-paced mobile app development world, delivering high-quality software quickly and efficiently is a major key to success. In order to achieve timeline goals, many mobile app development teams rely on a variety of testing methods to ensure their apps are free of defects and meet user expectations. One such testing method that has gained popularity in recent years is exploratory testing.
Anyone can perform basic exploratory testing, but only a handful know how to perform expert exploratory testing that can communicate and demonstrate the issues at hand. While we advocate for development teams to attempt their own exploratory testing, outsourcing to a skilled software team will always be to the benefit of your business.
Anyway, we want to showcase why exploratory testing is important for mobile app development and how to perform it effectively using some basic tidbits of knowledge.
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Exploratory testing is a software testing approach that emphasises learning about the product while testing it. A key component to exploratory testing however, is understanding the product's background and purpose. This approach focuses on the tester's ability to discover defects and unexpected behaviour in the app by exploring and experimenting with it. Exploratory testing is an ad-hoc and informal approach to testing that allows testers to use their intuition, experience, and creativity to uncover issues that may not be captured by formal test cases or scripts.
You can learn more about why human intuition is important in testing in this blog post.
Mobile apps are often developed quickly, with rapid iterations and releases. This fast-paced development cycle can result in issues and defects that are difficult to catch with formal testing methods. Exploratory testing helps to uncover these issues by allowing testers to explore the app in a more natural and intuitive way.
Exploratory testing is particularly important for mobile apps because they are used in a wide range of environments and situations. A mobile app must be tested across various devices, operating systems, and network conditions to ensure it works correctly in all scenarios. Exploratory testing helps to uncover issues that may not be captured by traditional test cases and ensures that the app is tested in a more realistic environment.
So, how do you perform exploratory testing for mobile apps?
We don't want to gatekeep our secrets, so it's important to emphasise that exploratory testing for mobile apps involves a few key steps. Here are some tips to help you get started.
- Define your goals and objectives. Before starting exploratory testing, it's essential to define your testing goals and objectives. This will help you focus on the most critical areas of the app and ensure that your testing is effective.
- Choose your testing approach. Exploratory testing can be performed in many different ways, depending on the app's complexity and the team's preferences. Some common approaches include scenario-based testing, user story-based testing, and session-based testing.
- Develop some different test charters. Test charters are brief descriptions of what the tester intends to test during the exploratory testing session. They help to guide the tester and ensure that testing is focused and effective.
- Record as you test. As simple as it sounds, we have come across many developers who rely on 'remembering' that minor bug or issue, and then later forget about it once they focus on a different aspect of the mobile app.
- This one is pretty straight-forward, but perform the testing. During the testing session, the tester should explore the app using various scenarios, inputs, and actions. The tester should also note any issues, defects, or unexpected behaviors that are encountered during the testing session.
- Analyse and recreate the results: After the testing session, the tester should analyse the results and identify any issues or defects that were uncovered. These issues should be documented and reported to the development team for resolution.
- Hire professionals. If you're at a loss on what to do during development and testing of a mobile app, the best thing you can do is get in touch with a professional team who can collaborate and assist in testing. Exploratory testing is one of the best ways forward with mobile app testing and also happens to be one of the friendliest approaches for your wallet.
Overall, exploratory testing is a powerful tool for mobile app testing, allowing testers to uncover issues and defects that may not be captured by formal testing methods. By using exploratory testing in mobile app development, teams can deliver high-quality software that meets user expectations and works correctly in all scenarios.
Remember to define your testing goals, choose your testing approach, create test charters, perform testing, and analyse (and truly understand) the results for the most effective exploratory testing experience.
