10 Best Practices for Successful Android App Testing

Quality is super crucial while developing an Android app. You’ve got to make sure your app works right, is fast enough, and gives users a great experience. If you don't test your app well, it could become buggy, slow, or confusing. Some key actions are crucial while testing an Android app to help make it foolproof. Of course, QA takes work, but it's worth putting out something incredible that users will want to use for the long haul.

Any organization venturing into the landscape of apps needs to be aware of how crucial testing is for its success. Businesses have access to a wide user base, with Android making up 70% of mobile users' operating systems. Did you know about 21% of millennials open an Android app more than 50 times daily? Moreover, 3.48 million+ apps are available in the Play Store. Hence, the need for a bug-free interface and usability! User expectations have been exceeded in the past few years. Therefore, businesses must amp up their mobile app testing game through proven best practices to navigate such a highly competitive landscape smoothly.

In this article, we will lay out the best practices for successful Android app testing to offer more clarity on how to test an Android app properly. Let’s dive into the details.

The Android app market keeps increasing as people use their phones for everything. With so many people buying Android phones and tablets now, it's no wonder that Android apps are gaining significant popularity! That's why it is critical to make killer Android apps that give users what they want. 

80% of users nowadays feel free to uninstall or delete an app that no longer serves them. Moreover, 48% of customers can uninstall an app because it is slow! The ultimate goal of mobile apps is to expand the outreach of a business and generate more revenue. However, users who face difficulties will always switch to a competitor.

There are like a zillion apps in the Google Play Store that all do the same stuff, but some of them just don't work right and mess up all the time.  A good chunk of Android apps get rejected when developers try to put them in the store.  All this shows that you must test Android apps a ton to ensure they're solid and worth using.

10 Best Practices for Android App Testing

Building a strong, dependable Android app is a must for the success of any organization. It calls for looking at the bigger picture: implementing a combination of the best testing practices from the get-go. Here are some key pointers for mobile teams aiming to make a stellar mobile app that users would find useful. Let’s take a detailed look into these.

• Integrating Testing Early On

Doing tests early lets you spot and fix issues way sooner, so you save effort and money fixing them later when it's tougher. Being proactive like this paves the way for a smoother, more streamlined cycle of putting it all together. For instance, if you have to use input birthdates to calculate a user's age, you can conduct relevant tests at initial development stages so that teams can identify any issues early on. Another example includes accurately validating map integration functions such as user response testing and working location services.

• Understanding Your Users

First, you have to pinpoint the real target audience for your app.  Grasping what your intended users want and need is important for shaping the app design specifically for them. Moreover, digging into user data is vital - not just for mapping out smart test plans but also for making informed, strategic business-related choices based on what you learn about your users. When you start including analytical mechanisms in an app, it becomes easier for QA specialists to test frequently used parts and understand user behavior.

• Establishing Clear Testing Goals

Make a nice and clear list of all the features and what's supposed to happen when you use them.  That way, you know if it's working right or not. You have to check that the big important functions that people will use the app for actually work. If the app doesn't do what it should, no one will keep it on their phones for long. 

• Testing Functionality

Take the time to test it out from every angle before releasing it into the world.  You don't want people writing bad reviews because your app has a bug-filled interface.  Do the work on the front end so your launch goes smoothly. No one wants an app that's confusing or doesn't work properly.

• Ensuring Performance

Making sure your app runs well is important. You must check how fast it launches, responds when someone taps or swipes, how much battery and memory it uses up, etc.  That'll help you find any problems in the code so you can fix them, and you want the app to work great no matter what the user is doing with it.

• Testing Across Various Devices

Test it on a bunch of different Android phones and tablets! They've all got different-sized screens, different amounts of power and memory, and different versions of Android too. Catching issues on older Android versions will help solidify the app for anyone who uses it. It is extra work testing on a wide range like that, but it's worth it. As a result, your app becomes flexible and works great for everyone.

• Implement Automated Testing

Implementing automated testing can help streamline things. Instead of doing all those repetitive tests manually, you can use tools like Appium, Espresso, or Robolectric to automate them.  It saves a bunch of time and effort.  The key is to design good test cases that cover all the key scenarios. 

• Evaluate Usability

It's also important to check how usable the app is for real users. You have to test the UI and UX to ensure it's intuitive and the design looks polished. People who find it confusing or frustrating will stop using it quickly. Get feedback from real users early and often. Tweak things based on their experiences. It's all about making sure the app is super user-friendly. 

• Emphasize Security Testing

Security testing needs to be a big focus if you want to ensure your app has no loopholes for hackers to exploit. Do lots of penetration testing, carefully review the code, and check out the encryption to block malicious intents. This way, users’ data stays safe from any risks.  For instance, if you’re trying to prevent unauthorized access, it’s crucial to test whether the app successfully encrypts sensitive data during transmission.

• Strategic Testing Approach

You have to be smart about how you test. For instance, doing it all exactly according to the script sometimes causes testers to miss out on certain cues. Session testing, where you just try out the app, is better for finding problems with user experience, unusual edge cases, and how normal people use it. All in all,  get the right mix of scripted and session testing to cover everything.

• Divide Testing into Manageable Parts

Breaking down testing into smaller chunks makes things more manageable. Focus on specific features or components one at a time for better results.  Hitting every part of the app bit by bit is key.  It’s vital to achieve comprehensiveness when testing coverage by hitting all parts of an application bit by bit. Such a systematic breakdown aids in the step-by-step identification and fixing of issues that ensure seamless working of all aspects of the app under test.

• Validation Through Regression Testing

Running regression tests after making changes confirms you didn't break anything else while updating and retesting areas that could've been impacted to be safe. So, whenever you add a new feature, make sure you put existing functionalities through robust regression testing. For example, adding a payment feature to your app should never hamper the working of other features like account settings or user authentication.

• Continuous Performance Monitoring

Use tools that monitor performance, stability, etc, continuously, even after launch.  This lets you catch real-world problems right away and fix them fast. Studying the data helps make good choices to improve the app and keep users happy.

With a user base of more than 2 million, LambdaTest has proven to be one of the most successful mobile testing platforms on a global scale. It is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that offers real device testing for test automation of both devs and production apps.

Users can also test on a private real device cloud with 24x7 availability. You can even customize these devices according to your unique workflow. Users don’t have to do any downloads or configurations, making the process easier. Some of its enterprise cloud features include:

• One-click upload
• Local or private tests
• Easy integrations
• Improved debugging with real-time logs
• Detailed insights

Conclusion

So, in a nutshell, testing a mobile app is a never-ending task because there’s always massive scope for improvement. When you implement these best practices, the QA teams form a strategic process for creating robust applications for the long haul. The combination of early integration and automated testing ensures timely addressing of issues and streamlines the SDLC to achieve greater efficiency.

Many testing strategies help ensure the app doesn't have bugs and works like it should. Android app testing is the catalyst to achieve that because it means, in the end, you get an app people can trust that serves its purpose. It's worth investing time and money into testing for it to offer recurring revenue and high user satisfaction.