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I'm Going Mobile: Testing Mobile Applications for Fun and Profit
Video
In this lightning talk from STAREAST 2011, Jonathan Kohl discusses testing mobile software and takes a look at some of the differences between mobile and traditional software.
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Jonathan Kohl, Kohl Concepts Inc.
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Mobile App Development: It's Harder Than You Think You're thinking of creating a mobile application to take advantage of the sky-rocketing potential of mobile phones and other smart devices. Serious and critical choices must be made. Which platforms and technologies do you support? Are web-based applications the best approach? What sort of testing will you need-from whom, when, and how much will it cost? Do you want to create applications that take advantage of the mobile platforms’ capabilities such as location-aware features? Since there are at least fifteen major platforms, including several that use disparate semi-proprietary programming languages, making the right decisions early is critical. Wrong decisions will result in wasted time, effort, and money and increase the likelihood of failure.
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Julian Harty, ebay, Inc.
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Insights into Mobile Applications Testing The phenomenal growth of mobile devices has opened avenues for organizations to integrate them into their mainstream computing environment. Today's mobile applications deliver complex functionality on platforms that have limited resources for processing and testing. Unlike the PC-based environment, the mobile world is comprised of a wide range of devices with diverse hardware and software configurations and communication intricacies. This diversity presents unique challenges and requires unique testing strategies. Rumesh Palaniswamy shares his experiences with testing mobile applications. The smaller screens, unique input methods, and minimal processing power in these devices often lead to unexpected outputs and other faults.
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Rumesh Palaniswamy, Cognizant Technology Solutions
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STAREAST 2011: Automating Embedded System Testing Many testers believe that it is prohibitively costly and time-consuming to automate embedded and mobile phone application testing. By approaching the problem from a test design perspective and using that design to drive the automation initiative, Hans Buwalda demystifies automated testing of embedded systems. He draws on experiences gained on a large-scale testing project for a leading smart-phone platform and a Window CE embedded automotive testing platform. Hans describes the technical side of the solution-how to setup a tethered automation agent to expose the GUI and drive tests at the device layer. Learn how to couple this technology solution with a test design methodology that helps even non-technical testers participate in the automation development and execution. Take back a new approach to achieve large-scale automation coverage that is easily maintainable over the long term.
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Hans Buwalda, LogiGear
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Testing Embedded Software Using an Error Taxonomy Just like the rest of the software world, embedded software has defects. Today, embedded software is pervasive-built into automobiles, medical diagnostic devices, telephones, airplanes, spacecraft, and really almost everything. Because defects in embedded software can cause constant customer frustration, complete product failure, and even death, it would seem critical to collect and categorize the types of errors that are typically found in embedded software. Jon Hagar describes the few error studies that have been done in the embedded domain and the work he has done to turn that data into a valuable error taxonomy. After explaining the concept of a taxonomy and how you can use it to guide test planning for embedded software, he discusses ways to design tests to exploit the taxonomy and find important defects in your embedded system.
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Jon Hagar, Consultant
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The Power of the Crowd: Mobile Testing for Scale and Global Coverage Crowdsourced testing of mobile applications, a middle ground between in-house and outsourced testing, has many advantages: scale, speed, coverage, lower capital costs, reduced staffing costs, and no long-term commitments. However, crowdsourced testing of any application-mobile or not-should augment your professional testing resources, not replace them. Most importantly, crowdsourced testing has to be done well or it’s a waste of time and money. John Carpenter reviews the applications and ways he’s outsourced testing to the crowd. Focusing on adopting crowdsourcing for both functional and usability testing in mobile applications, John describes scenarios in which you can leverage the crowd to lower costs and increase product quality, including scaling the application to large populations of global users.
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John Carpenter, Mob4Hire, Inc.
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Test as a Service: A New Architecture for Embedded Systems The classic models adopted in test automation today-guaranteeing ease of test implementation rather than extendibility of the test architecture-are inadequate for the unprecedented complexity of today’s embedded software market. Because many embedded software solutions must be designed and developed for multiple deployments on different and rapidly changing hardware platforms, testers need something new. Raniero Virgilio describes a novel approach he calls Test as a Service (TaaS), in which test logic is implemented in self-consistent components on a shared test automation infrastructure. These test components are deployed at runtime to make the test process completely dynamic. The TaaS architecture provides specific high-level test services to testers as they need them.
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Raniero Virgilio, Intel
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STARWEST 2010: Automating Embedded System Testing Many testers believe the challenges of automating embedded and mobile phone-based systems testing are prohibitively difficult. By approaching the problem from a test design perspective and using that design to drive the automation initiative, William Coleman demystifies automated testing of embedded systems. He draws on experiences gained on a large-scale testing project for a leading smart-phone platform and a Window CE embedded automotive testing platform. William describes the technical side of the solution-how to setup a tethered automation agent to expose the GUI and drive tests at the device layer. Learn how to couple this technology solution with a test design methodology that helps even non-technical testers participate in the automation development and execution. Take back a new approach to achieve large-scale automation coverage that is easily maintainable over the long term.
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William Coleman, LogiGear Corporation
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Exploratory Testing of Mobile Applications Exploratory testing-the process of simultaneous test design, execution, and learning-is a popular approach to testing traditional application software. Can you apply this approach to testing mobile applications? At first, it is tempting to merely employ the same methods and techniques that you would use with other software applications. Although some concepts transfer directly, testing mobile applications presents special challenges you must consider and address. Jonathan Kohl shares his experiences with testing mobile apps, including the smaller screens and unique input methods that can cause physical strain on testers and slow down the testing effort. Smaller memory and less processing power in the device mean tests often interfere with the application’s normal operation. Network and connectivity issues can cause unexpected errors that crash mobile apps and leave testers scratching their heads.
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Jonathan Kohl, Kohl Concepts, Inc.
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Crowdsourced Testing of Mobile Applications With new mobile applications for Blackberry, iPhone, and Android battling for media attention and consumer dollars, the pressure to get applications built, tested, and launched has never been greater. Getting high-quality apps to market quickly can make or break a product or company. However, the testing methods that work for Web and desktop apps (e.g., in-house QA, outsourcing, emulators/simulators, and beta testers) do not meet the extreme testing needs of mobile apps. Companies must test across many handset makers and models, wireless carriers, operating systems, browsers, and locations. This calls for a new approach-crowdsourcing. Doron Reuveni provides insight into the growing trend of crowdsourced testing for mobile applications and addresses both the benefits and challenges of this new testing model.
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Doron Reuveni, uTest
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