13 Major Challenges In Mobile Application Testing

Mobile applications have become a crucial part of our daily lives, serving various needs and purposes for personal and business use. This is why app design agencies focus on creating high-quality apps that deliver smooth user experiences. However, app testing is a crucial part of the app development process that can be challenging. This article offers valuable insights to help app design agencies understand mobile application testing, including its everyday challenges and how to overcome them.

NUMI’s product design solution offers app design agencies a structured approach to mobile app testing that helps them achieve their goals. The solution allows teams to categorize testing tasks, create an organized plan, and establish a straightforward process to follow, making it easier to tackle the challenges of mobile application testing.

What is Mobile Application Testing?

Mobile app testing refers to the procedure of examining the operations, usability, functionality, performance, and security of the mobile app to ensure it meets quality standards. It delivers a high level of convenience and functionality for users. 

Mobile app testing comprises testing for devices, operating systems, screens of different sizes, network conditions, and other factors to eliminate artificial errors, bugs, or issues in the application before its release to the public.

How Mobile App Testing Works for Application Development?

Ensuring Quality

Mobile app testing is essential since it helps to meet quality expectations and locate errors by correcting flaws, failures, and problems before releasing an app to the customers. This helps prevent low ratings, bad reviews, and user experience issues with crashes, freezes, or errors that may result in unsatisfied users.

Enhancing User Experience

Testing is the key to ensuring the app’s UI is simple and easily accessible and creates a highly rated user experience. Developers can detect performance bottlenecks and usability issues early in the development process. 

This allows them to make necessary improvements to the user experience and increase user retention and engagement.

Optimizing Performance

Performance testing draws attention to performance-related problems like sluggish response, long loading times, or high battery consumption, improving the app's performance. This guarantees real-time and in-context accuracy and reliability, allowing developers to adapt to: 

• Different devices
• Network conditions
• User cases

Maximizing Compatibility

Compatibility testing ensures the app functions seamlessly across different devices, operating systems, screen sizes, and resolutions. By running tests for various devices and configurations under other circumstances, developers can create an app that offers a stable user experience for as many users as possible.

Enhancing Security

Security testing finds vulnerabilities that may harm the program and its users by running attacks from hackers and malicious individuals who want to harm the program. Developing a security system for an app at a later stage might not be effective in entirely preventing potential risks, and user data may be vulnerable.

Minimizing Risks

Testing eliminates the risks of launching the mobile application, such as user dissatisfaction, resistance to change, and brand isolation. Extensive application testing allows developers to spot and eliminate the risks before the app’s release, leading to a successful product that will withstand long-term competition.

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13 Challenges In Mobile Application Testing

1. Device Fragmentation: So Many Devices, So Little Time

Imagine testing your app on hundreds of devices—different: 

• Screen sizes
• Resolutions
• Brands
• Hardware specs

It's an impossible mission, right? Thankfully, you don't have to buy every device out there. 

Platforms like BrowserStack and AWS Device Farm let you test on real devices in the cloud. It's like having a massive device lab without the hefty price tag. Focus on your audience’s most popular devices and let these tools handle the rest.

2. Operating System Chaos: The Never-Ending Updates

iOS and Android keep life interesting with constant updates—and by “interesting,” I mean frustrating. Your app needs to run smoothly on the latest and older OS versions that some users refuse to let go of. 

The solution? Use analytics to pinpoint the OS versions your users rely on the most. Automated tests will then be set up to check compatibility whenever a new update occurs. Trust me, staying ahead of these updates is a lifesaver.

3. Unpredictable Network Conditions

Not everyone enjoys blazing-fast Wi-Fi 24/7. Some users are stuck with spotty 3G, while others might go offline entirely. Your app needs to perform reliably in all these scenarios. Tools like Charles Proxy and Network Link Conditioner can simulate slow, unreliable, or disconnected networks. 

Test how your app handles losing connection and reconnecting—does it crash, freeze, or recover gracefully? Real-world testing is non-negotiable here.

4. Battery Life: The Silent Killer

There's nothing worse than an app draining a phone’s battery faster than streaming a movie on max brightness. Users will not hesitate to uninstall it. Tools like Android Studio Profiler and Xcode Instruments help track your app's energy consumption. If you spot a resource-hogging feature, optimize it before users give your app the boot.

5. Security: Protecting Your Users

Mobile apps are a prime target for hackers. From insecure data storage to leaky APIs, there are plenty of vulnerabilities to worry about. The fix? Incorporate security testing into your process. 

Tools like OWASP ZAP are great for spotting weak points. Always encrypt sensitive data and perform regular penetration testing. Users feel safe when your app is secure—and that's priceless.

6. Handling the Load: Can Your App Take the Pressure?

Have you ever seen an app crumble during a Black Friday sale? That's what happens when load testing isn't taken seriously. Use tools like Apache JMeter or LoadRunner to simulate heavy traffic and ensure your app can simultaneously handle thousands—or even millions—of users. Better to find out your app's limits during testing than during a real-world event.

7. The Surprise of Frequent Updates

Here's the thing: your app might work perfectly today, but what about when Apple or Google drops a surprise update? Suddenly, something breaks, and you're left scrambling. 

Maintaining a strong regression testing suite can avoid this nightmare. Every time an update is released, you'll be ready to recheck critical features and fix issues before users notice.

8. The Integration Puzzle

Imagine your app relies on third-party APIs, SDKs, or payment gateways. It sounds convenient—until something goes wrong. Maybe an API slows down, times out, or doesn’t work. When that happens, your app might look broken, even if it's not your fault! 

This is where tools like WireMock or Postman come to the rescue. They let you simulate API responses so you can see how your app handles these hiccups—whether it's a slight delay or a full-blown outage.

9. Input Methods: It's More Than Just Tapping

Gone are the days when mobile apps were just about tapping buttons. We now have voice commands, gesture controls, hardware buttons, and stylus inputs. Ensuring your app supports all these input methods seamlessly? That's a challenge. The best approach is to test on real devices and simulators to ensure the app feels intuitive no matter how users interact.

10. Speaking Their Language: Localization Challenges

If your app is global, it needs to speak to users in their language. That means adapting text, date formats, currencies, and cultural nuances. But localization isn't just about translation. Have you ever seen an app with text overflowing off the screen in German? 

That's what happens when localization testing gets skipped. Tools like Lokalise can help you streamline translations and ensure your app looks polished and professional in every language.

11. User Experience: Making It All Feel Effortless

A great user experience goes beyond functionality. Your app should be easy and even enjoyable to use. But designing that kind of seamless experience takes real effort. This is where usability testing shines. By gathering feedback from real users through platforms like UsabilityHub, you can refine your app until it feels intuitive and effortless.

12. App Store Compliance: Playing By the Rules

The App Store and Google Play have strict guidelines, and let's be honest—they're not always easy to keep up with. If you fail to comply, your app could be rejected or removed. 

To avoid this, make it a habit to review their policies regularly. Use test cases to double-check that your app follows the rules, from permissions to ad placements, so that you can avoid last-minute headaches.

13. Test Automation: Not as Easy as It Sounds

Automation testing sounds like a dream, right? Write a script once, and let it do the work for you. Dynamic UI elements and differences across platforms can make automation tricky. Tools like Appium and Espresso can help with repetitive tasks, but you'll still need a solid strategy for updating scripts as your app evolves. Automation isn't a "set it and forget it" kind of deal—it's a commitment.

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Why Is Testing Of Mobile Applications Important?

The ultimate goal of developing mobile apps is to increase business outreach to more users worldwide. Users are unlikely to use a faulty or challenging app. Naturally, no business wants customers to uninstall their apps and switch to competitors. 

If mobile apps are not thoroughly tested, there is a high chance that users will encounter critical bugs on their devices, which may lead to a bad user experience, particularly for new users. First impressions are vital to the success of any mobile app. Any unexpected app crash or functionality bug can lead to immediate uninstallation of that app, which can also result in losing potential customers and revenue. 

Stats That Prove Why Mobile App Testing Matters

Listed below are some key stats that prove why mobile app testing matters: 

• 80% of customers delete or uninstall an app that doesn’t meet their expectations. 
• 50% of customers tend to uninstall an app that occupies too much space on the device. 
• 48% of customers uninstall or abandon an app if it is slow. 

App Testing Benefits Your Business

There are 9,000 distinct mobile devices, and end-users in the real world can install and use the app on any device. The app must be optimized enough for that device to run smoothly. The constant proliferation of smartphones has led to increased usage of mobile devices. Mobile users globally are expected to reach 7.5 billion by 2026. 

That’s twice the growth compared to 3.6 billion smartphone users in 2016. The numbers indicate a significant increase in mobile device usage shortly. The growth of mobile devices will also foster the development of advanced mobile apps to make business services more accessible. Naturally, businesses must ensure their mobile apps are optimized and future-ready for advanced smartphones. 

The Importance of Testing and Optimization for Seamless Mobile App User Experience

This can be achieved only by testing and optimizing apps on the latest mobile devices. Mobile app testing helps validate apps’ appearance, performance, and functionality across multiple devices. 

Optimizing apps for mobile-OS combinations popular among the target audience helps the app provide a seamless user experience, irrespective of device or OS. It helps deliver a robust and customer-centric experience for new users. In a nutshell, the better the user experience, the higher the probability of increased outreach. 

How NUMI Simplifies Design and Development for Startups with Framer Experts

NUMI is a Framer web design agency powered by experienced Framer developers and product designers. Backed by Y Combinator, NUMI handles your startup's sourcing, vetting, and hiring design needs. We have a fabulous design team that ensures all of your design work is being done well. 

NUMI helps with: 

• Product design
• Web design
• Framer development
• Webflow development
• Mobile design
• Prototyping
• UX design
• All of your startup's design needs! 

Subscribe to a guild of world-class designers ready to embed on your team today. Schedule a call with us today to learn more!

How is Mobile App Testing Different From Web App Testing?

Mobile applications are specifically designed and developed for operating on mobile devices. On the other hand, web applications are software applications that reside on web servers and are accessed through web browsers. Web apps and mobile apps differ significantly in how they are built. 

User’s interaction with them also differs, as mobile users use gestures like scrolling, pinching, and zooming on their touchscreen mobiles. Naturally, the methods to test both vary as well. At a high level, mobile app testing refers to testing an app across numerous mobile devices. In contrast, web app testing focuses on validating the appearance and functionality of websites across multiple browsers.

Subscribe To A Guild of World Class Framer Developers with Our Framer Web Design Agency Today

NUMI is a Framer web design agency powered by experienced Framer developers and product designers. Backed by Y Combinator, NUMI handles your startup's sourcing, vetting, and hiring design needs. We have a fabulous design team that ensures all of your design work is being done well. 

NUMI helps with: 

• Product design
• Web design
• Framer development
• Webflow development
• Mobile design
• Prototyping
• UX design
• All of your startup's design needs! 

Subscribe to a guild of world-class designers ready to embed on your team today. Schedule a call with us today to learn more!

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