Major points while testing a Mobile Application

Article content: Major points while testing a Mobile Application
This is my first blog post and I am sharing some basic points to be considered while testing a mobile application (Currently, I am working on it) are –

• Navigation of the application - We need to verify the whole navigation of the application and need to find out the dead ends . Traverse whole application, every possible path and come back to the starting point. In this way we can find out the dead ends, inconsistency in the navigation and lot other things.

• GUI of the application – Most of the mobile applications are developed for one platform / screen resolution and ported on other platform (Platform Porting) OR on devices with different resolution (Device Porting). In this process , there are many GUI issues which gets introduced in the application. These issues should be reported and addressed carefully.

• Behavior of the application on Call/SMS (Suspend/Resume) especially on entry screen & popup screen – This is one of most important activity while testing a mobile application be it a game / application residing on device OR application using communication protocols. Mobile applications using internet / client server communication needs to be tested for this scenario on the screens / process establishing network connections.

• Behavior of the application on pressing CLEAR key & END key – This is also one of the most important testing activity while testing a mobile application. When implemented default, CLEAR key takes the user back to the previous screen and END key ends the application. It needs to be tested carefully as there are chances of application crash. In my experience, I found one interesting bug for developers with CLEAR key. There was one data entry screen with default letter displayed in the text box. Now when the user taps on the text box and presses CLEAR key to clear the data, type in special characters in the text box the application was crashing.

• Behavior of application when memory is almost full (MaxFileCount) – This test is important when your application is creating any file(s) on the user device. Many times developer does not handles this situation well and the application crashes by giving a unfriendly error message (Exception found.. )

• Behavior of the application on application directed SMS (Syntax is “//brew::”) – This test is one of the most important in BREW applications. By this we test the behavior of application by sending the message to invoke the same application while it is running in foreground.

• In BREW applications apart from functional tested cases prepared we also need to execute standard set of test cases provided by the NSTL.

• Sound functionality of the application (if applicable)

• Timer functionality (specially on Suspend/Resume)