5 Top Factors in Website Usability Testing [must-read]

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You might be familiar with usability testing services. If you own a website, it’s important to test the usability of your website.

There are many new websites appearing day by day. Since Internet is a mixed hub of information, news, entertainment etc, you’ve to face very high competition to survive. Truth to be told, you can’t say when your website traffic will disappear. Don’t worry; you can avoid such a situation by testing the usability of your website.

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Usability testing services can help you to improve the performance of your website. Businesses will get more leads via improving the usability of their website. But, before hiring a testing service you have to know some aspects on testing the usability of your site.

Read Also : How Usability Testing Benefits the End User

Here are 5 factors on website usability testing you should know about:

  1. User Task Analysis

First of all, you have to test if the visitors to your site can achieve their tasks and goals. Make sure they can do so in an efficient way as well.
It’s good if you can analyze the chief user tasks. For instance, when it comes to blog, reading blogs, finding older posts and make comments are considered as user tasks.

  • Intuition HQ – You can analyze the aspects from a user’s view with Intuition HQ.

  • Usabilla – This will help you to perform micro-usability tests. You are able to gauge the task performance. Proper feedback is possible with this.

  1. Readability

For any website, content is the soul. For instance, web apps are not that content-centric as a blog. So, it’s difficult to read and understand the user interface. This will prevent one from completing tasks efficiently and accurately.

Readability depends on these factors:

  • Ease of Comprehension: Your content should be digestible for an average internet user. Use simple words and catchy sentences.

  • Clarity: Check whether users can read the content without strain. If not, adjust the font size. Make sure there is difference between the text and background.

  • Reader’s appreciation:Ensure your site publishes fresh and unique content with precise information. Readers should enjoy and appreciate your content. Analyze if longer passages are able to read without much strain to the eyes. If there are any issues adjust font characteristics such as colour, spacing, etc.

  1. Navigation of the site

Site navigability decides whether your site is user friendly or not. Your site should be designed in such a way that users can access multiple web pages with much ease. Navigation menus, sidebar widgets, search boxes are the user interface things you should look for easy navigability.

Read Also : 8 Ways to Make Usability Testing Simple

You have to consider these things while testing navigability:

  • Information Architecture (IA):This will help you know if your web pages are organized properly. You can also check whether the navigational components are set in a user friendly way.

  • Searchability:Make sure there are enough navigation features on your site for finding exact web pages.

  • Navigation efficiency:You can check the efficiency of navigation by identifying the clicks and text size needed to reach the page of interest.

Usability Testing Services use many tools to assess the usability of your site’s navigation and information architecture (IA). Card sorting and Tree testing are two popular methods used by these services for testing navigability.

  1. Accessibility

Accessibility to everyone is the must have quality of a good website. To be precise, it should be accessible to persons with disabilities as well.

Here is a list of tools that will help you in testing and gauging the accessibility of your site.

  • Net: You can use this tool for card sorting.

  • Treejack: This tool will help you in tree testing

  • WriteMaps: If you want to generate and manage site maps, Writemaps is there to assist you.

  • PlainFrame: You can do quick tests of website navigation with this tool.

  • Vischeck: Make sure how the pictures and layout of your site will look to a colour-blind person with this tool.

  • WebAnywhere: Problems of people who require assistive software can be solved with this tool.

  • Browsershots: You are able to gauge the performance of your web pages in different browsers with Browsershots.

  1. Speed of your website

If your site lacks speed, you’re going to lose customers. As most of the internet users are impatient, they will switch over to another site. So try the following tools for improving your website speed.

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  • Page Speed Online: You can assess your site’s performance with this amazing tool from google.

  • Pingdom Tools: This is a popular tool for analyzing your site’s speed. Pingdom Tools are very user friendly, you just need to paste your URL and all the information on your site’s performance can be analyzed.

Top Automation Tools for iOS App Testing Services

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Unlike Android app testing, iOS App Testing is different and more complex. Testing services use many tools to tackle the set of challenges.

Here are top mobile automation tools for iOS mobile app testing services.

  1. XCTest

XCTest is provided by Apple. You can use this framework for unit testing. You can write and run your tests easily with this tool owing to its good interaction with the IDE. Even doing TDD workflow is much easier with XCTest.

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You might have heard of OCUnit tool. It was used to perform unit testing prior to iOS 6. OCUnit has now become obsolete and XCTest is the recommended tool ever since the Xcode 5.

Read Also : 8 Must-Know iOS Testing Tips

  1. UI Automation

UI Automation is an Apple sanctioned way of performing iOS functional testing. You might be familiar with typical functional tests or black-box tests. In such tests you’ve to write code that simulates an end user navigating your app, in fact you’re doing a kind of UI Automation there.

You have to use instruments to utilize UI Automation. For example, tools that come with Xcode can be used for this purpose.

iOS code is written in Objective – C or Swift, whereas UI Automation tests are written in JavaScript. This is the only drawback of UI Automation.

Since UI Automation is lightly documented, there is chance for experiencing technical problems. As there is not much of a community around it, you are devoid of technical support as well.

If new versions of XCODE are launched, Apple may provide updates to UI Automation. In the event, apple doesn’t give you technical support; you can rely on third party ways to test your iOS code.

  1. OCmock

OCmock is a popular iOS app testing tool. As it as an efficient tool, you can use it for stubbing out and making mock objects of stuff. For instance, it works like a code that leverages in a remote API.

There are codes that relies on a User Interface (UI), you can utilize OCmock tool for such codes. It’s not easy for you to represent yourself like UI objects.

  1. KIF (Keep It Functional)

KIF is an amazing tool for iOS App Testing Services. It can be used as an alternative to UI Automation.

It’s an open source and third party tool as well.

As you write tests in UI Automation, this tool also enables you to write tests somewhat in the similar fashion.

KIF depends on accessibility labels much similar to UI Automation. Since you are allowed to define your application, you can design your app that is accessible for visually impaired persons as well. Instructions for using the app can be prompted through audio queues.

KIF has a couple of advantages over UI Automation. You have to swap languages between Objective – C and JavaScript in UI Automation. As KIF is written in Objective – C which supports Swift too, you don’t need to swap between languages.

  1. FBSnapshotTestCase

FBSnapshotTestCase helps you to verify your UI code by performing visual diffs between saved screenshots. Facebook has created this brilliant tool and maintained by them as well.

Test-your-WebApps-for-better-stability

Unlike taking the full screenshot of the device, Snapshot tool helps you to do in a more granular level. It enables you to choose UI view for widgets on the screen. Additionally, you are able to separate snapshot test case into UI view subclass. This is a useful feature when compared to the normal kind of simulated click and play used in UI Automation.

Read Also : Best practices to follow for iOS mobile app testing

  1. FRANK – BDD for iOS

Frank tool permits you to build acceptance tests utilizing Cucumber<. You can do end- to- end testing in iOS with this tool.

Since it acts like an adaptor connecting your app to Cucumber, Frank helps you to run BDD tests for your iOS app.

You will get step- by- step recipe from the Cucumber recipes book (Test iOS using Frank), that would be a great help for you.

We highly recommend these amazing tools for iOS App Testing Services, as it is successfully used by experienced engineers to automate their own projects.

Mobile Software Testing Guide for First Time App Developers

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As everyone knows, mobile technology and smartphones are becoming a trend now and for sure is going to transform the future of the world. If you are a beginner in mobile app development you may get puzzled at thinking the challenges of mobile software testing.

app testing

As an aid for first time app developers, we are introducing a guide on mobile software testing. Unlike other software guides we tried to explain testing aspects in a lucid style. We hope this guide will boost your confidence in app developing.

Let’s have a look on different types of mobile Testing

Kinds of mobile software testing

Mobile testing is mainly of two types:

  1. Hardware Testing

Hardware testing is otherwise known as simple mobile testing. You have to test the internal processors, screen sizes, internal hardware, memory, resolution, camera, radio, WIFI, Bluetooth during this process.

  1. Software Testing

The functionality of applications on various mobile devices is tested during this process. Hence it is known as Mobile app or Mobile Application Testing. When it comes to mobile applications, it is important to know a few basic differences:

  • Native apps: Native apps are developed to use in devices like mobile and tablets.
  • Mobile web apps: Mobile web apps are very much like native apps, but are not implemented as such. You can use these server side apps to access sites on mobile via different browsers.
  • Hybrid apps: As the name suggests, hybrid apps are developed by combining native app and mobile app. Web technologies like HTML and CSS are used to write these apps.

    Read Also : 8 Key Challenges of Mobile App Testing Services

Importance of Mobile Application Testing

Here are some reasons why mobile software testing is more challenging than testing apps on desktop

  • Types of mobile gadgets with varying screen sizes and hardware configurations.
  • Different kinds of mobile brands like Samsung, Nokia, Apple, HTC, etc.
  • Varying platforms like Android, IOS, Windows, Symbian, etc. Various versions of these mobile operating systems also create challenges.
  • Different technologies used by network operators like CDMA and GSM
  • Repeated updates from Operating systems (For e.g.- iOS-5.x, 6.x)

Mobile and Desktop Application Testing – Common Differences

Here are a few aspects that make you understand what makes mobile app testing and desktop testing different

  • The mobile apps are tested in mobile handsets like HTC, Samsung etc. while in the case of desktop it is tested on a central processing unit.
  • Screen size of a mobile device is smaller when compared to desktop
  • Memory of mobile gadget is less than desktop
  • Usually desktop use broadband or dial up connections where mobile gadgets use services like 2G, 3G, 4G, WIFI etc.
  • You can never use the automation tool for mobile app testing but it works on desktop applications.

Kinds of Mobile App Testing

If you want to resolve all the above technical aspects you have to perform the following kinds of mobile app testing.

  • Usability Testing: With this test you are able to know if your app is user friendly
  • Compatibility testing: You have to do this test to make sure your app’s performance on various mobile gadgets, OS versions, browsers, screen sizes etc.
  • Services testing: This test will help you to address issues related online and offline performance of your app
  • Performance testing: This type of testing is a must to ensure the performance of your app when switching connections from 2G, 3G to WIFI. Also, other issues like battery consumption can be checked

  • Interface testing: You should perform this test to make sure the modules of your application like menu options, settings, bookmarks, etc. are working properly
  • Operational testing: You can prevent data loss while upgrading your app from the store by doing operational testing. This test will help you to set backups and recovery plan for your app.
  • Security testing: Vulnerabilities of your app can be detected because of this testing

    Recommended Read : 5 Types of Testing to Make Your Mobile Apps User Friendly

Testing strategy for mobile apps

A sensible test strategy will enhance the quality and performance of your app. Here are a few tips for you.

  1. Selection of gadgets is crucial – You need to study the current market trends and choose the popular used gadgets for testing. (Since clients consider the popularity factor of gadgets, you can develop your app according to the marketing needs.)
  2. Emulators – As emulators permits speedy and efficient checking of the app, it will help you in the first stages of development.

Let’s know about kinds of mobile emulators

  • Device emulator – Usually offered by device manufacturers
  • OS emulators – Top mobile brands like Apple, Microsoft and Google are providing emulators for iPhones, Windows phones, Android phones respectively.

Some user friendly emulators for mobile gadgets

  1. Mobile Phone Emulator – You can use this tool for testing devices like Samsung, iPhone, HTC etc.

  2. MobiReady – This tool will be helpful for you in checking web apps and codes as well.

  3. TestiPhone – You can see the real preview of your app with this amazing tool.

  4. Screenfly – You can test sites under different categories with this tool.

​3.Make use of Google Cloud Testing for testing your app’s performance on multiple devices

Mobile App Testing and Test Cases

It is important to develop functionality based test cases and special test cases as well for mobile app testing. Test cases should include the following criteria

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  • Battery usage– It’s vital to monitor battery utilization while running application on the mobile phones.
  • Application speed – It is a known fact that the response time on various gadgets with diverse memory parameters will be different
  • Data requisites – You need to check if a user with limited data can download your app without technical issues
  • Memory/ Storage – Need to verify the memory requirement to install and run the app

Developing the right strategy for testing is vital for the success of a mobile app. So, we hope that our software testing guide will help the app developers, especially the beginners.

Game Testing Services Skills Every Game Tester Should Have

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Game development has increased because of the rise of mobile phones. As a result, Game Testing Services have gained much importance.

If you want to be a game tester, you ought to know what employers need from you. As a game tester, your role is crucial for the success of a game.

Read Also: The What, Why and How of Mobile Game Testing

Game Testing Services will give you completed version of a game. You have to find out glitches within the game.

So, what are the required skills?

  • Keen observation skill is a must for a mobile game tester. If you can’t catch bugs, better forget the job of a tester, as companies test such skills in the job interview

Testbytes

  • You should possess investigation and troubleshooting skills. Those skills are essential to find out bugs easily and rectify it as early as possible
  • Patience to handle repetitive and monotonous tasks
  • Analytic thinking is a common skill needed in the world of software testing.

Some Additional Requirements

Let’s know about some more skills expected by Game Testing Services

  • Diplomacy: Of course, you have the experience of playing games alone on your gadgets. Keep in mind you are going to work with a team of professionals for a company with the goal of generating income.

If you have any previous experience of working with a team, you might know the difficulty to manage your colleagues. People with big egos won’t last long. For your information, testers provide their service to other departments in the same company as well. Actually they are also your clients. Try to be a team player by keeping good relations with them.

  • Communication Skills: Good communication skills are very important since much of the game testing involves filling out bug reports. You are supposed to explain what went wrong in an effective way as well. Sometimes you have to write test cases and to explain your test strategy.
  • Ethics:As far as a tester is concerned, work ethics is very crucial. You might think if you ignore a bug nobody is going to notice it. But companies want to make sure you can be trusted and will get the job done on time.
  • Ability to cope with deadlines: Game Testing Services want to hire people who can meet deadlines and able to work under pressure at the same time.

What about Technical Skills?

The employer may ask if you have a technical idea of how games are built, etc. For example, if you are a localization tester you ought to have knowledge about game content construction. An idea about various security protocols and security threats are necessary for testing security. Additionally, you should be aware of various IT certification processes.

Passion for Gaming

Companies really want people who can sit in front of a game and interact with it all day long. This will be easier for people who are passionate about mobile games. If you don’t have any interest towards gaming, it is not so easy to continue in this job for long.

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Qualifications Required

In most of the countries, no university is providing a course in game testing. However, skills are very often tested at the interview by the Game Testing Services.

Recommended Read : Is Testing Important for the Mobile Gaming Industry?

Some testing companies look for experienced candidates. This is because experienced testers have a good idea of the game development cycle. At the same time, inexperienced candidates may also be recruited by some employers for their specific job requirement.

Every beginner tester should understand that good knowledge, technical skills and experience are essential for every job. So, improve your skills and good luck!

Why iPhone App Testing Services are Important

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iPhone App developing is different from developing App for Android OS. As Google is considerably more open, you can submit Apps to the Google Play store freely, while Apple follows strict rules for approving an App. This could prevent you from iOS app developing.

app testing

In fact, Apple sticks to such guidelines in order to provide quality apps to the users.

There is no use if you are planning to utilize third – party API that worked well with Android versions. Apple might not approve it. Most of the mobile app developers find it enough reason to stop the tiring process of developing for iOS.

Read Also: 8 Tips for Successful iPhone App Testing

Why should you create Apps for iOS?

We can’t ignore the fact that it is a cumbersome process to gain the approval of iTunes store. But at the same time there are some advantages for developing for iOS platform when compared to Android. The most striking advantage is the absence of fragmentation of devices and OS versions. The App Testing and developing is easier owing to these reasons.

Some Aspects on Fragmentation

Fragmentation is not a big problem because of the closed nature of iOS. Anyway, when it comes to testing some work must be done in this sector. At present Apple has many supported devices. Therefore you have to test more devices other than iPhone. Though there are variations in screen resolution and aspect ratio the iTouch and iPad have access to iTunes store as their iPhone counterpart.

The generations of processors, memory and storage space is different across gadgets. It is important to test these aspects. Unlike iOS, other mobile platforms use emulators for testing. Like that, you may use the same. For your information, emulators can only show you how an app will respond on a gadget. In a real iOS device battery life, processing power, memory allocated will be different from that of an emulator.

Facts on App Store Approval

The submission and approval process is strenuous for Apple App Store. Their process and guidelines change from time to time. If you don’t meet their requirements, your approval will get delayed.

It is important to check the requirements, before developing and particularly before you start your application. This is because to ensure that your app is practicable on the iTunes marketplace. Keep in mind, if your app just target a particular market overlooking other markets, Apple will probably reject your app proposal.

There are some advantages owing to these stringent quality regulations for approval. In any market, users give primary importance to privacy and security. Suppose an app collects users information without their permission, Apple will definitely reject their app. Therefore developers must go through App Review Guidelines before developing an app.

There are separate guidelines for iOS and Mac.

Some Aspects on Beta Testing

An App Distribution Guide will be provided to you by Apple. During Beta Testing you have to use this guide. You ought to create an Ad Hoc profile in order to distribute the Beta version of your app. Xcode is an exclusive development IDE for iOS apps, the latter process will permit beta users to use your app without accessing Xcode.

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Recommended Read : 6 Automation Tools for iOS App Testing

All these facts will make you aware of what reason iPhone App Testing Services are important. Though iPhone App Testing is a tiring process, keep in mind app success depends on user acceptance and app quality.

Things to Know about Android App Testing Services with Google Cloud

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It is news to android app developers that google has launched Cloud Test Lab. It is a new technique for developers to test their Android apps.

app testing

Android App Testing Services can make use of this cloud based technique to test Android apps against multiple Android devices in bulk.

The boundless number of various Android gadgets makes it all but Android developers cannot guarantee that their applications run well on every one of them. No need to worry about it, Google Cloud Test Lab Service could help with this.

Read Also: 6 Top Android App Testing Challenges

Google describes the service in this way:

For complete testing before launching your app, Cloud Test Lab gives you access to physical gadgets so you can see what’s happening for your clients in the real world. Additionally, you can run the majority of your tests over all gadgets, all in the meantime – giving you access to greatly parallel testing, bringing you profound and scaled insight.

This innovative service launched at Mountain View’s Google I/O Developer Conference, will allow developers to upload their apps through the Google play Developer Console. Developers will get the opportunity to test their apps on both real and virtualized versions of the major 20 Android gadgets across the world.

In the event that the application crashes anytime, Android App Services will get a report with a video showing the failure. Google affirms, the reports will likewise call attention to if the app’s format doesn’t work with a specific screen resolution and if it has any issues running on gadgets with minimal memory.

Usefulness of Cloud Test Lab

Appurify provides the technology for Google Cloud Test Lab. Appurify have some really wonderful technology; there is nothing wrong with saying that Google Cloud is a service packed with potential.

Each APK submitted to Play Store’s Alpha and Beta channels will be so filtered on more than 20 physical gadgets and get a free launch execution report. Android App Services which need to run customized testing can in the end buy it through Cloud Test Lab.

With Google cloud, Google aims to drive a quality improvement of apps. The service can possibly make it quicker and simpler for developers to manage the issues connected with the fragmentation of Android Gadgets. It is proven that this will work with a subset of functionality on a subset of devices being given for free. This will be awesome for game developers and small organizations that don’t profit from their apps to burn through $1000’s on testing.

Basic app crawlers can do wonders with Google Cloud. They likely to use this free functionality to provide unscripted pseudo – random testing.

Recommended Read : How to Master the Art of Cloud Testing

A larger set of practicality from a way larger pool of devices isn’t an expensive service to produce and will come at a cost for developers. This may target the top 1% of apps and supply a technique for supplementing the apps existing internal testing. The type of extra functionality likely to add would be features such as:

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  • Support of customized testing structures, such as, Espresso and UIAutomator.

  • Complete control of gadget environment, such as, network connection, language, memory, signal quality and location.

  • Ample network traffic, memory, CPU, battery and FPS profiling.

  • Comprehensive gadget library

Gadgets to include are as follows

  • Gadgets from every manufacturer.

  • Flagship gadgets for each of the past several years.

  • Each released CPU design.

  • Every Android API, including preview APIs

  • Blends of Feature Sets

  • Android One gadgets

  • Different physical screen size

  • Different screen densities

  • Varying screen resolutions

  • Variety of languages

  • Languages with RTL layouts

  • Android TV gadgets

  • Android Auto gadgets

  • Android Wear gadgets

 

8 Key Challenges of Mobile App Testing Services

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Today, millions of people depend on mobile app to conduct internet browsing for social networking as well as for other purposes. The increased use of mobile apps and its rapid development, stress the need for proper testing before releasing it to the market. As end users are more concerned about user experience and performance, there is a need to discuss major challenges of mobile app testing.

Read Also: 6 Top Android App Testing Challenges

Some of the key challenges of mobile app testing services are:

  • User experience and issues related to app performance

Customers always prefer an app with greater user experience. Also the app should give a fresh, proper and pre-defined user interface. A delay of more than two seconds can affect the user performance and thus cause a significant impact on their preferences. Mobile applications which are free from errors and faults will give a better user experience and this will directly affect on the business sources of the application. Quality of the mobile application is graded by users according to the user experience. Most customers choose the application based on the previous reviews and grades. Sometimes poor user experience or old errors may lead to business failure of the application.

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  • Touch screen

Touch screen enables display and retrieval of data faster and easier. Today it is one of the major sources of user interaction. Testing of touch screen tends to be more complicated and stable. Apart from this, signals or signs which show data also cause a challenge in the process of testing.

  • Context awareness

One of the greatest challenges in mobile app testing is context awareness that demands new and innovative approaches. Mobile applications in different contexts along with different data can often create a new challenge in the entire process of testing. Constantly changing usage patterns and environment of smart phones can create a great impact on context.

  • Lesser time to market the app

Declaring of strict timelines can affect testing of mobile app. Strict timelines can prevent fulfilling of proper design, development, need and overall testing of mobile apps according to the needs of the user. Certain stages of mobile app development are closely related and it needs to be properly tested. For effective testing and later release, there is a need for framing ample timelines otherwise it becomes a complete failure.

  • Security issues

There is more security for apps running via private cloud when compared to apps running in a public cloud. There would be no data violation for a secure private cloud and it provides access to testing teams.

  • Variations of mobile user interface

There are different user interfaces for different operating system such as Windows, Android, etc., which guides by a different set of rules and regulations. While publishing mobile applications in the market, it is necessary to carry out a careful checking on the layout of the elements and usage of apps as a part of the verification process. Publishing process gets delayed if the apps fail to follow the rules and regulations which later increase the cost of testing and development.

  • Lack of access to multiple devices

There are chances where two testers need the same devices at the same time. It would be impossible to use the same devices by two testers. Hence, one tester would be left out until the other one leaves it. Procurement of multiple devices is time consuming and expensive. Also, it is not advisable to place testers across continents.

mobile app testing

  • Device based testing approach

Under this approach, there is a necessity to buy real new mobile devices as well as setting up a testing laboratory. It is costly and this approach needs to cope with changing mobile devices and platforms as well.

Recommended Read: Best practices to follow for iOS mobile app testing

A proper, specific and structured testing strategy can make mobile app testing services successful and worthy. It would be helpful to consider the above challenges at the time of testing mobile apps.

How to Identify a Good Mobile Game Tester

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Game testing is a lucrative career for those who have a passion for playing games and finding bugs. The rise of mobile phones has increased game development and game testing services exponentially.
But if you are a game developer, how do you identify a good mobile game tester? An eye for detail, computer literacy, exceptional memory, good writing skills etc. are well appreciated qualities in a mobile game tester.

Long work hours and recurring overtime can make work exhausting for people working in the game testing services industry. If you really don’t have a love for games, the whole routine could become tiring eventually.

Read Also:  The What, Why and How of Mobile Game Testing

Game Testing- Qualifications required
Since there are no university degree that specializes in game testing at least in most of the countries, candidates appearing for jobs in game testing services are usually tested for suitable skills that will prove beneficial to the job requirements of a game tester.

Some testing jobs, especially senior ones will require experience. With experience, a tester gets a better idea of the game development cycle, its various tools, and can recognize discrepancies and errors easier. Sometimes employers may recruit inexperienced candidates simply because there are lots of inexperienced candidates available for their specific job requirement. Then in order to aid the screening process they will opt for more experienced candidates.
Let’s discuss some of the desired qualities of a game tester. These qualities should be either present in a game tester or are to be developed with experience.
Vital Skills for a Mobile Game Tester
Keen observation: For being a successful game tester, you need to have exceptional talent in finding the oddities. You’d have to keep your eyes wide open and find all those camouflaged and unwanted bits that can decrement your game’s aesthetic appeal.

Problem solving ability: When you see a particular defect in your game’s performance, you should be able to figure out what is the real cause behind such a hurdle.
Love for gaming: Game testing jobs actually requires you to sit and interact with a video game all day long. Passion for gaming is an additional boon to your profession as a game tester. Without any interest towards gaming, it will be difficult for someone to continue on this job for long.
Good writing skills: This is something that is often neglected but yet one of the most important skill that a game tester should possess. A game tester should be able to communicate and record the findings in good and standard language without leaving any scope for ambiguity.
Patience and tolerance to monotonous tasks: Even for interested game players, similar games can cause aversion. So, one should give it a second thought before taking a career path in game testing.

Role specific skills: You must hold skills specific to the area of your work. For example, if you are a professional localization tester, you should have expertise in the language of game content construction. Testing security needs awareness about various security protocols and security threats. Compliance testers should have good knowledge on various IT standards and certification processes.
You May also Like: Is Testing Important for the Mobile Gaming Industry?
Teamwork: This is a general skill that is required in any software based industry. Having the right technical skills alone is not enough to work in an industry. A tester should be a good team player too. When you have to work with a team, you should know how to work cooperatively. Ego can hinder your work. Mutual respect and trust is necessary for team performance.
Meeting deadlines and working under pressure: Overtime and working weekends can become unavoidable when deadlines are to be met. Employees should be willing to accept this and should have strong willpower and motivation towards delivering performance when working under pressure.

6 Top Android App Testing Challenges

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Unlike traditional desktop and web applications, android app testing is different and more complex. It has its own set of challenges.
app testing
The movement towards mobile devices has brought a whole different set of challenges to the testing world. Not only consumer targeted apps, but enterprise apps as well are on the rise.
Read Also: Top 5 Automation Testing Tools for Android
Here are 6 key challenges that android app developers and testers are facing.

  1. Screen Sizes: The android world is not simple. There are devices with display sizes ranging from sub-3 inches to over 10 inches. The variety of different aspect ratios and pixel densities can be overwhelming as well.

With the launch of iPhone 6, Apple brings new screen sizes to iOS as well. Though iOS developers are used to pixel perfect screen design, they now need to change their mindset to adaptive screen design. But for android it’s at an amplified rate. For testing, it means that we need to check on various devices that all the necessary screen elements are accessible with different screen sizes and aspect ratios.

  1. Connection Types: There are several standards for mobile data connections (edge, umts, 3G, 4G) as well as for wifi (b, g, n). Sometimes there might be no connection available at all or the device is in flight mode. When users move around the connection type might change.

Unfortunately some carriers filter the web on their own will, which results in the devices being connected without actually having connection with a specific service (messaging or calling through apps). Even though connection APIs on mobile platforms have been developed keeping those challenges in mind, the real world environment is still very much varying and interesting set of issues may occur. It’s important to test the bandwidth usage as not all carriers are supporting unlimited data volumes.

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  1. Different OS versions: iOS users are known to upgrade quickly to newer versions. On the contrary, Android uptake has historically been very slow and the fragmentation is wide. This means that app developers need to support older OS versions and older APIs and testers need to test those.
  1. Power consumption and battery life: Innovation in the battery storage capacity field hasn’t been keeping up with the app consumption rate. We are running lots of apps during the day and several processes are running in the background without us even noticing. This all requires CPU cycles. Thus, batteries tend to dry. When testing mobile apps, we need to make sure that the power consumption is kept minimal and the app is developed keeping the best practices in mind.
  1. Usability: Mobile devices screen are comparatively small and there are always more data we would like to present than possible to fit to the screen. It’s challenging to keep the interaction clean and simple for the user, and at the same time display all the necessary information. Font size and readability are other challenging factors of usability. When testing mobile apps, it’s important to pay attention to the size of click areas and making sure that all texts are readable without lenses.

You May also Like: 5 Types of Testing to Make Your Mobile Apps User Friendly

  1. Internationalisation: Most of the apps are designed to be used on international markets. Testing for translation is only one piece of the whole internationalisation testing. Testers should also take into account regional traits like locale settings and time zones and target audience.

Changing time while app is running might cause some interesting artefacts. Also some designs that are working in the western world might not work in the east and vice-versa. Right-to-left languages have always kept developers puzzled.

8 Tips for Successful iPhone App Testing

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There is a popular belief that iPhone app testing is a lot simpler than testing for android because you’ve got to test it only for Apple devices. Well, don’t be so sure. First of all, it should be noted that several parameters are a must test for every app, be it iOS or android. Consider the following scenarios:
End user experience- This ensures your app is user-friendly. Key areas tested includes usability, GUI, localization, reliability, scalability etc.
Hardware- The different phases under this testing focus on discovering hardware issues such as compatibility, interoperability, battery consumption, memory consumption etc.
Application adaptability- Locates application issues related to multitasking, portability, architecture, memory allocation, environmental interaction etc.
Network and communication- Tracks down issues from security vulnerabilities, synchronization etc.
mobile app
The above-mentioned factors are methodically tested for each and every application developed to ensure its success. Here are some useful tips for iPhone app testing that helps you to confidently release your apps.

Read Also: 6 Automation Tools for iOS App Testing

1. Checking Memory Availability
App crashing due to low memory availability is a commonly witnessed problem. When there is an app crash that is not reproducible on re-launching, you have every reason to believe that it may be due to unavailability of ample memory. So, in order to save yourself from getting stuck into avoidable bottlenecks, you should keep it a best practice to always check and report your memory status while testing.
There are several tools available for calculating free memory. If the crash is caused due to a memory related issue, the problem will vanish when there is plenty of available memory.
2. Testing under Low Memory Conditions has Additional Benefits
It is a clever idea that you test your app under low memory conditions. By this way you can reveal the potential threats that may come up to cause you problems in real world scenarios. Apple’s recommended way of testing your app’s behavior under low memory conditions is by running apps like Safari, iPod and Mail that is already programmed to run in the background.
3. Check the Crash Report Log
Every time an app freezes, a crash file is created in your iPhone. This data is valuable for iPhone app testing. It helps testers to diagnose the real issue as it contains information on app performance prior to crash. The crash log can be obtained by syncing your iPhone with iTunes.
4. Run Simultaneously with Background Apps
With exceptions for Apple’s featured apps such as Safari, Music and Mail, third party apps can’t function simultaneously in the iPhone environment. So outside apps should be tested for multi-functioning. It should be tested to handle interrupters such as reminders and push notifications. Also, activities like receiving calls and playing music in iTunes should not affect the behavior of the running application.
5. Make use of Screenshots
In the case of a GUI bug, there is no better way of documenting it than capturing the real issue with the help of iPhone’s built-in screen capture option. Following this way can help a developer in getting a clear picture of the actual problem, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

You May also Like: 8 Must-Know iOS Testing Tips

6. Boundary Value Analysis with Data Input
It could be actually surprising for you to hear that text inputs can discover bugs. Yes, it actually works! In boundary value analysis, a maximum number of text characters or error values are supplied into each text field. This would make application errors if there are any unseen bugs present.
7. Testing Connectivity Problems
The behavior of apps that need internet usage should be tested for issues due to connectivity problems such as slow connectivity, and internet unavailability. This connectivity issues can be artificially created by turning airplane mode on, using a low-speed internet connection etc.
app testing
8. Monitor App info from the Console Activity Log
To debug problems in real time, you can analyze the console output since the latest crash logs and warnings from your apps are saved in all your Apple devices. The console log can be retrieved by using the iPhone configuration utility.