What is the role of manual testing today for mobile app testing? While the testing world pushes for increased automated testing, manual testing still has an important role to play.

While automated testing is often faster, especially for regression testing, manual testing puts human judgement and creativity at the fore – does everything look right? Are there new or non-obvious paths? How might a user misunderstand what’s being presented? Is there something a test script might know to do that some users will not find easy or intuitive? What happens when the user makes a mistake or does the unexpected? The human tester can also make qualitative assessments of the look, feel, and appeal of the app.

Cloud-based testing is especially important to manual testing because a large variety of devices and OS versions can be checked quickly. But, such cloud access can come with internet lags that slow the work down or even cause some events to be missed. With smooth action, however, cloud-based manual testing can equal the speed and accuracy of having dozens of devices in-hand, something almost no one has. The answer lies in implementing real-time manual testing leveraging a high-performance mobile device cloud that excels in three distinct areas – device access, interactivity and productivity.

Improved device access

Without an organised and instantaneous means to share devices, managing mobile devices is a time-consuming process, and due to the ever-increasing number of smartphones and tablets, purchasing multiple devices for testing is expensive. For mobile developers and testers that are located in different offices worldwide, or even on different floors of the same building, sharing devices in real time is virtually impossible. Sure, devices can be shipped, but waiting to receive devices in transit is a huge time constraint and can lead to major delays. But it is not much better if the device you need is down the hall in the locked office of a colleague. The goal for modern mobile testing is to be faster and attempting physical device sharing leads to a huge strain on time, cost and productivity.

While many testing teams have attempted solutions like using personal devices, the only reasonable way to have sufficient coverage of form factors, models, and OS versions is to have a large pool of devices that everyone can use. A mobile device cloud stores such a pool in one central location where the devices are always charged, accounted for, can be reserved and scheduled, and are ready for instant access anywhere in the enterprise.

In-hand vs. interactivity

What does manual testing look like if testers do not have a device in hand? Manual testing with a mobile device cloud enables testers to login to a portal from a computer. Upon login, manual testers can see available devices and choose the needed one. The device’s display contents are shown in real time on the engineer’s monitor and it appears to the tester as if the physical device is in his or her hands. All user interactions with the device are initiated with the workstation’s keyboard and mouse.

Whether the team decides to implement a mobile device cloud on-premises o keep secure dedicated devices in a data entre, the devices are available 24/7 and easy to find in real time. A mobile device cloud offers the added benefits of allowing testers to reserve devices ahead of time, allowing devices to be used more efficiently.

Productivity gains

The world moves fast and so does mobile app testing. By taking devices out of testers’ hands, manual testers can test in real-time thanks to not having to wait for physical devices to become available. A smooth, high-performing device cloud can replicate the results achievable on an in-hand device and improve productivity in other key areas.

Manual testers can use the mobile device cloud to view multiple devices side-by-side for comparison and can save multi-touch gestures. Reporting bugs are faster because a mobile device cloud allows manual testers to copy and paste text and add screenshots to a defect report.

For apps that rely on geographical location to function properly, such as navigation, restaurant, or retail apps, a mobile device cloud helps manual testers rapidly test through location simulation by changing the GPS location of a device.

Furthermore, when new apps are developed or when an updated app release is ready for testing, a mobile device cloud makes installing apps across devices fast. Apps can be installed in real time if the cloud is integrated with the build system so that new builds are installed automatically.

With all the buzz around mobile automated testing, the role for manual testing might seem diminished. But, in order to release top-quality apps quickly, manual testing must be part of the mix. The most effective enterprise mobility teams embrace strategies that erase the challenges of manual testing and transform it into real-time testing that improves speed, quality and agility.

The post Mobile app testing in real-time appeared first on DevOps Online North America.

Even though this looks like a gargantuan amount, US$1.9trillion is just 8.7% of the total retail sales in the year 2016.

With the growing number of internet service providers, the proliferation of mobile data and the growing acceptance of e-commerce sites, there is a huge potential for further growth, and sales numbers are projected to reach US$5trillion by 2021.

This has led to a flurry of new startups and investments in the e-commerce domain, and every new player is aggressively trying capture this market.

Customer experience

One of the key metrics that decides success in this field is the “conversion rate” –  the ratio of visitors to a website that completes a purchase.

The average conversion ratio varies widely depending on the nature of a business, but it is critical to have an above average conversion ratio to be a successful e-commerce website.

Though a lot of factors play a role in determining the conversion ratio, customer experience stands out as the most important ingredient.

Gartner’s prediction indicates that, by 2020, customer experience will overtake prices and products as the key brand differentiator. But the problem is that there is no fixed set of rules to improve customer experience.

Innovations

Experience suggests it is purely based on trial and error. Unlike other websites, e-commerce websites require extra attention to ensure seamless performance at a customer’s end.

This means tweaking, upgrading, and adapting to new innovations at a rapid pace to stay ahead of the competition.

Quick implementation of these innovations and rolling back certain unsuccessful ones at a lightning pace gives a company huge competitive advantages.

These innovations might help in providing a solution for a wide variety of issues ranging from:

1. Adaptability to existing and new devices (Mobile phones, laptops, tablets and any other new devices)
2. Adaptability to a new UI or web server
3. Improving and measuring load performance during peak hours or during flash sales
4. Integrating a new API to improve the functionality of the website

Testing the ecosystem

Agile development is just one piece of the puzzle offering to solve these issues, but an equally important piece is an end-to-end test system.

A comprehensive test system which tests the whole ecosystem starting from frontend, backend, API, load and integration layer (Integrating shopping carts, standards for data transfer, payment server).

Furthermore, automating end-to-end testing adds greater agility, allowing you to quickly respond to changing business needs, reducing time to market.

Automating also allows you to increase the number of tests performed, adding to the breadth and completeness of your testing.

Written By Mouli Srinivasan, marketing manager at Renovite Technologies.

The post Why is end-to-end test automation the ‘best way ahead’ in e-commerce? appeared first on DevOps Online North America.

According to Computer Weekly, there will be roughly 753 million new mobile phone subscribers worldwide.

GSMA expect that by the end of the decade, China will account for 21% (155 million) of those subscribers, and India will account for 27% (206 million).

“Led by India and China, Asia’s mobile industry will be the main engine of global subscriber growth for the remainder of the decade, connecting almost half a billion new customers across the region by 2020,” said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA.

“We are also seeing a dramatic shift to mobile broadband networks, particularly 4G, which is providing a platform for a rich range of innovative new services across both developed and emerging markets in the region. Meanwhile, advanced operators in Asia are set to become among the first in the world to launch commercial 5G networks before the end of the decade,” he added.

GSMA also noted that there is going to be a 3.1 billion increase in mobile subscribers from Asia-Pacific (APAC), accounting for around 66% of global growth to 75% by 2020.

Written by Leah Alger

Read more from DevOps Online | Follow us on Twitter

The post Asian tech giants to take over 50% of mobile subscribers appeared first on DevOps Online North America.