Mobile Test Pyramid

Mobile Test Pyramid - Adventures in QA

Anyone who is involved in software testing and software test automation should know the test automation pyramid introduced by Mike Cohn (http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/).

This article contains excerpts from my book „Hands-On Mobile App Testing“ published with Pearson Education.

As you can see in the following image, the typical pyramid consists of three layers. At the bottom, there is the automated unit-testing layer, in the middle the automated integration testing layer and at the top there is the automated end-to-end testing layer (including the user interface tests). Each layer has a different size, indicating the number of tests that should be written within each stage. Manual testing is not part of the test pyramid, hence it is shown as a cloud for additional testing work.

Test Pyramid - Adventures in QA

But this pyramid is not applicable to mobile apps and mobile test automation. Mobile testing requires a totally different set of testing activities like movement, sensors, different devices and networks compared to other software like desktop or web applications. Lots of manual testing is required to be sure that a mobile app is working as expected in the different usage scenarios.

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Mobile App Europe Summary and Slides

I am just back in Hamburg from the Mobile App Europe Conference and I am still excited about it. I had 2 great days in Potsdam meeting several mobile experts from all over the world to exchange on the latest mobile topics. I had the chance to talk to Dan Cuellar, the creator of Appium which was really great. I talked to people from booking.com, Groupon and other cool companies out there.

Another great thing was that I met Stephen Janaway and Richard Bradshaw again. We had some nice talks and at the end of the first day we were recording another episode of Testing in the Pub together with Denys Zelenchuck, Sergej Mudruk and André Gorzel.

Adventures in QA - Recording Testing in the Pub

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People in Testing with Richard Bradshaw

Adventures in QA - Richard BradshawThis time in the “People in Testing” series, I had the chance to interview Richard Bradshaw aka the FriendlyTester.

Daniel: What is currently your biggest challenge at work?

Richard: Time! I am currently the sole tester on a project. Responsible for the testing of the apps, which include iOS, Android the a responsive website. Also until recently, this also included a windows phone app. It’s a lot to manage. So it becomes a real balancing act as to where I spend my time. Fortunately the team is aware of this and we stagger the releases. We tend to have iOS ready at least a week before Android. Then the web is more sporadic, mainly because we are able to release that instantly, so the risk is lower, due to the fact we can instantly rollback or push a fix if something was to go wrong, this isn’t as easy with the apps, especially iOS, due to the submission times. Another advantage of the way we work is that the platforms are aligned, meaning that we tend to be delivering the same functionality to all at the same time. This is advantageous to me as I can test across platforms at the same time, but also as with most projects, there is a lot of tacit knowledge, so testing all three while it’s still there helps.

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Android Fragmentation Report

Android Fragmentation Report - Adventures in QA

As every year since 2012, the guys from OpenSignal release the Android fragmentation report. The latest report was just published and the results of it are amazing and at the same time really scary if you are an Android developer or Android tester. For the 2015 report, 682,000 devices were surveyed and 24,093 distinct Android devices are on the market. Last year in 2014 there were “only” 18,796 devices available. Within one year the Android device market grew by 5,297 more devices, which is amazing if you keep the new iOS devices in mind. Apple released in 2015 (well 2014) only 4 devices. The iPhone 6, iPhone 6+, the iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 3.

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Beta Testing for Android Apps

Beta Testing for Android Apps - Adventures in QA

Since a couple of years Google is offering beta testing for Android apps. With this feature companies or developers have the chance to release Android beta apps to mobile testers via the Google Play Store. This feature is integrated into the Google Play Developer Console and is very easy to use. All you have to do is to upload your beta apk file to the developer console and to publish the app to the known beta testers.
Mobile development teams are able to create their own beta testing community with the help of G+ communities or Google groups. Since last week, Google is offering two more options to improve the beta testing even further. With this update, mobile tester and developer are able to create a public beta tester group without the need of the G+ community or a Google group. All you have to do, is to enable this option in the developer console and to send the beta testing URL to possible testers.

The URL has the scheme: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.package.name. Whenever a tester is clicking this link he or she can become a beta tester of the app. After clicking the link, the beta tester will get an update of the app in the Google Play Store and is able to download the beta version.

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