Load & Stress testing on Mobile device using open source

Smartphones popularity has greatly influenced mobile applications   and responsive websites. Mobiles now play a major role for conducting profitable business. Enterprise mobility is enhancing efficiency of employee communication to reach out to consumers, clients and suppliers. Earlier, when mobiles played a  less important role with respect to business applications, performance issues or outages were not attended with importance.

However, this situation no longer holds relevance to the present day. Nowadays, performance problems related to mobile applications result in huge loss of revenues, diminished productivity of the employees, damage to brand reputation, and many other significant losses.

Modern day consumers have very high expectations regarding the performance of mobile applications. This increases the responsibility of mobile application development teams who are accountable for delivering, reliable, responsive as well as well-designed applications.

Moreover, nowadays a number of diverse mobile devices has proliferated the marketplace, providing development teams of mobile application with a dynamic cross-section of platforms to test.

Mobile Testing is not similar to traditional performance testing. As mobile is entirely a different game, testing attributes and requirements are also a lot more steeper owing to its unpredictable nature. Load and stress testing are carried out for assessing the performance of the mobile under normal and extreme situations.

Load Testing:

Load testing is carried out for determining whether the application would be able to maintain the required number of users along with acceptable rejoinder times. The intention of load testing is basically to standardize the maximum load with respect to simultaneous users that the mobile application is able to sustain before it experiences system failure.

Stress testing on the other hand aims to validate the consistency of an application as well as its dependability over a significant span of time.

On the server side

Load testing is essential at the server’s end so for understanding the variations with respect to response times, delays in the delivery of significant messages, streaming of resource intensive packets, application crashes, etc.

On the client side

Load testing of mobile applications are carried out to address the general discrepancies related to the application behavior on diverse platforms and different handsets, CPU consumption and memory, battery issues as well as loading speed.

For sound testing of mobile applications,

• Selection of the right testing tool for automation for the success of a mobile application testing program is vital
• Chosen tool need to support all the desired platforms as well as testing for different screen types, input mechanism and resolutions.
• The chosen tool need be connected to the external system to carry out end-to-end testing.
• For identification of the most critical platform/hardware combination that needs testing, Weighted Device method of platform mix needs to made good use of.
• The end-to-end flow of functions need to checked on all possible mobile platforms at least for once.

One can make use of NeoLoad which is basically a performance testing tool that provides support for Mobile Application Testing.

Stress testing

This refers to software testing for assessing satisfactory performance under extreme as well as unfavorable conditions. These may be the outcome of process loading, heavy network traffic, maximum requests, etc.

It has been observed that most of the systems have been developed under assumption of normal operating conditions. So even if one crosses a limit, errors are mostly negligible in case the system undergoes stress testing during its development.

• Stress testing primarily lays major emphasis on the availability of the application as well as its error handling capability in face of unfavorable conditions such as extreme heavy loads.
• This testing is generally carried out for ensuring non crashing software that may happen owing to insufficient resources.
• It also helps in the determination of reaction of the hardware while in the stress period.
• It is used to identify errors in slowness as well as during the peak user loads, issues relating to corruption of data and security loopholes during the stress period

Stress testing of mobile applications focuses on a number of transactions ranging from identified to break transactions, as well as on those that are heavily stressed while testing. It also checks when a database is devoid of any load. The process of stress testing loads concurrent users apart from normal levels of the system for finding out the weakest link of the system.

Both types help in eradication of the performance bottlenecks that crop up when a number of users require access to a common resource. Identification of the problems with these two testing methods in the early phase, testers are able to upgrade hardware, optimize applications, or even employ effective strategies to make performance improvements before release of the software.

Mobile Compatibility Testing Best Practices

Mobile compatibility testing is a process by which quality and performance in terms of functionality, consistency and usability of the mobile application software are tested. Lack of mature testing tools, different devices and platforms, short release cycles and the diverse network connectivity options are some of the key challenges that often result in numerous missed deadlines and cost overruns in today’s mobile app testing environment.

An inclusive mobile testing strategy involves device and network infrastructure, optimized choice of target devices, an effectual combination of automated and manual testing tools. When it comes to getting your mobile applications to market timely and within budget is it essential to conduct functional as well as non-functional testing.

Let’s discuss about the various elements of an effective mobile compatibility testing strategy and best practices that optimize mobile application testing.

Compatibility Checking

• Testing professionals focus on ensuring excellent mobile application compatibility and functions across multiple devices of different hardware, screen sizes and resolutions.
• A test plan is drafted on evaluating the devices from the end user market. Devices and testing environment are decided respectively, based on the evaluation report.
• Apart from the compatibility checking, functionality on several devices is also checked up for Interoperability after rigorous testing.
• Compatibility and Interoperability analysis is managed and reported using external and internal test management and bug reporting tools.

Best Mobile Testing Practices

Software testing of mobile applications uses many of the same QA & Testing practices typically used for other software applications. However, there are significant factors that can define how successful the mobile app is ultimately.

Below are the best strategies in developing and performing quality assurance on mobile applications for addressing precise aspects of the testing procedure.

• Ensuring that you have access to not just emulators or simulators but all physical devices on which the application run.
• Considering the personnel, additional time or both required to test all the application modules on multiple devices.
• Having an explicit list of devices on which QA will be carried out. Basically, this means that the professionals are committed to supporting some Operating Systems and devices on which the app will perform as designed. The users are informed that although the application might work on other devices, the personnel won’t be held responsible for unexpected issues. Nowadays, this approach is taken by the majority leading vendors, for instance, Skype.
• Implementing a mixed strategy when you have a set-up where you do not have all the supporting devices and so cannot perform exhaustive testing on each. In the early stages of application development, you can use an emulator. Also, keep adding real devices into the testing later down the development cycle. Thus, you can certify that all the objectives and requirements are being covered.

Major Functional Testing

• Checking the application as a “black box” and trying to break it.
• Opening every screen of the mobile app and changing the position from portrait to landscape mode and back again as this is the way to discover most errors.
• Checking device-specific functions, like communication interfaces and sensors.
• Writing test automation scripts for mobile apps by using a standard tool.
• Choosing a test automation tool that fits into the company infrastructure as well as strategy.

Key Non-Functional Testing

• Usability tests.
• Comparing performance levels for upgrades between the new and the released version of the app.
• Checking how the application reacts to SMS, incoming calls, tweets or MMS.
• Authenticating the test device’s battery drain.
• Checking memory usage of the app.
• The ease with which the application is Installed and deleted.
• Checking mobile applications for version upgrades.
• Compatibility and Localization testing.
• Testing the application on various carriers and network connections such as GPRS, Wi-Fi or LTE.
• Choosing the right testing tools.

Mobile testing is more useful, if the testing team and the developer have a better understanding of the target end users of the apps. With the above mentioned knowledge, the development and testing teams can optimize and reduce the amount of development and testing effort required for different devices and varied software versions.

3 Software Testing mistakes that can kill your mobile app

Designing of mobile web applications involves a lot of effort and creativity as mobile users look for sleeker experience as compared to that of desktop users. With the development of mobile applications evolving constantly and at a rapid pace, developers of mobile app are constantly in a process of learning and continuous brushing up of their skills. Release of smartphones with various new features have acted as a catalyst in coming up with a number of challenges for the progressive developer of mobile web applications.

Development of these apps involves a lot of software testing and other scrutiny processes to remove all errors and launch a smooth and well functioning app. Since issues related to the performance of the mobile application such as hanging, crashing, etc comprise approximately 15% to 30% of the user complaints, carrying out software testing is highly important.

However, there are certain mistakes committed while carrying out the software testing of a mobile app that impact performance as well as leads to negative user experience. This requires the developers to be aware of and alert about these common software testing mistakes to avoid them. Avoiding the mistakes by staying aware and alert also leads to the development of a quality and error free mobile app.

Being Your Own Beta Tester

Being the beta tester oneself, is not recommended in case of software testing of a mobile app. With someone else beta testing the mobile app of a particular company, there are certain benefits that are received as compared to the same being done by the developer himself/herself.

• Beta Testers are important as they offer companies with important outside perspective which helps in catching issues within the app.
• Moreover it is not just the bugs that matter but also certain other factors culminate in giving an edge to the developers.
• Errors can also be the result of unclear communication of the in-app purchases or even inappropriate use of advertisements that lead to the entire experience feel a bit of jarring.

These flaws are serious considerations for the mobile apps that need to be identified for ensuring sound performance. It is hard for a developer to find flaws in his/her own creation. Therefore the role of a Beta Tester becomes essential to pin point the loopholes.

Beta testing is indeed a simple task which should indeed accompany each app development. Beta testing should be carried out in the first phase of the mobile app development process so that it is able to catch the problems in the UI before the developer gets totally involved in the design of the app.

App-analytics tools like Google’s Universal Analytics and Flurry can be used to have a closer look at how the testers are using the app. Larger the number of people beta testing the app, the more prepared will it be to venture out in the real world.

Testing the front end in isolation

A very common mistake that most testers commit is testing the front-end but neglecting the experience of the end-user. The end-user experience is important as it is an amalgamation of the back-end and the front-end behavior along with the communication patterns that usually take place in between.

Intermittent or infrequent regression testing

It has often been noticed that testers during the development process, easily fall into the trap of paying a lot of focus on new tests or new code at the expense of regression testing. This provides an easy method for the problems to be crop up and also go unnoticed and especially so in case of problems that are basically related to the performance of the app. Regression tests are vital to pinpoint the blockages so as to uncover the bugs in the code.

Besides errors related to software testing, mistakes that have been committed by designers in the past also impact the quality as well as affect the popularity of the application. In today’s cut throat competition, a company cannot afford to commit these petty mistakes.

A company always expects a high Return on Investment on the huge investment it has made on the building of the app. With an app that is designed appropriately, there are fewer chances for this.

Should Mobile testing be 24/7 dimensional because apps are used anytime?

A mobile application has to undergo and overcome rigorous testing to be accepted by the app stores. Once the application is launched, the app needs to be constantly tested to incorporate emerging changes and features while ensuring performance and security.

Imagine a flaw in a mobile application that is being used by millions of users of a bank. The flaw could be a security vulnerability, data interpretation anomaly, substandard input options or delayed confirmation. The consequences include disrupted transactions and delayed payments for the users, poor user experience and a financial loss for the bank in addition to a potential decline in the customer base.

For a business organization, apps transform the interactions with the customers by eliminating the barriers of time and distance. For example, the business time for an e-commerce app is 24/7 365 days a year. With a wide array of productions on the application, it becomes difficult to predict the time of a heavy surge in traffic which tends to affect the transactions.

The mobile ecosystem presents an enormous plateau of users, a rich concentration of usage and a fertile area for innovation. The benefits are accompanied by an increased scope of defects which need to be identified, prevented and treated with minimum loss of time.

Innovation is the key stone for a mobile application testing right from its conceptualization to the usage. Testing is a Quality Assurance component right from the prototype to the test automation that supports the operations. Testing is essential to eliminate the causes of rejection and to measure the adherence to design and UX guidelines.

To translate mobile moments into digital interactions, sales closures and increased engagement with the customers, organizations employ testing to make sure the applications are truly mobile in terms of compatibility with the browsers, operating systems, devices, network carriers and usage patterns.

Hidden behind the flawless mobile applications is a combination of development and testing that brings defect management into the application lifecycle with scalable components, contextual dashboards and goal maps for greater prioritization.

To accomplish such complicated manoeuvres in an environment driven by goals, technology, changes and constant trouble shooting, the human intellect or the human dimension determines the nature of the outcomes and the reaction to the outcomes. Thus, the presence of professional testers in development environment brings as opposed to external assessments is essential to make the applications rich in quality and resilient to changes.