Top 9 Tips to Improve Retail Mobile App Testing

Introduction

In contemporary digitized times, billions of people use their cell phones to carry out almost any function they need. The pinnacle of digital interaction listing is retail and online shopping. According to Statista, retail e-commerce sales account for $4.9 trillion globally. Customers assume that the mobile app they use for shopping online will provide them with the best user satisfaction and experience with perfect app performance optimization. However, the road to this glory is riddled with challenges for development and testing teams. Online shopping applications tend to confront various issues that other industries do not face. The principal demanding situations are related to imparting a flawless consumer experience.

Based on the evaluation of top retail clients, here is a list of our best nine suggestions for testing any retail mobile app using mobile app performance testing tools. Applying these will significantly improve the testing techniques, reliability, and speed. The principal gain will be launching a software program of superior quality substantially faster.

Testing User Experience

Every enterprise desires to provide an ideal consumer experience. Nowhere else is this more important than in the highly competitive world of online retail. A smooth user experience facilitates higher revenue and an enhanced reputation for the brand. In 2020, Amazon had 3.68 billion visitors on an average every month.

The lion's share of the user experience is related to how the application can work under varied network conditions. It adds up to the time taken by the application to respond to interactions on the device by the user. Mobile applications have additional areas of attention concerning the memory, CPU, and battery levels consumed.

It has been observed that out of the five stars awarded by the app stores like Google Play Store and App Store, up to 2 stars are related to the performance and user experience. Hence, it is essential to check these parameters using mobile app performance testing tools and ensure that the application offers an exceptional user experience.

Using HeadSpin's mobile app performance testing insights, the user experience can be incessantly monitored for optimum quality with the following features:

• Specific KPIs are available for audio, video, mobile, and much more, as per requirements
• KPI can be correlated across various applications and touchpoints
• Interaction KPIs can be tailored as per the specific requirements of the online shopping application

Improving QA Environment

The QA or Quality Assurance environment of a retail mobile app is complicated. These environments are usually composed of several services required to work collectively. If they do not, and the environment does not demonstrate strong availability, it can affect the entire team's performance.

The following steps were found to be the handiest for leading retail customers in conquering this problem:

• Making a squad crew that consists of DevOps engineers who are aligned with the priorities of the QA team.
• Implementing virtualization for the services which show the highest degree of instability.

Implementing the two methods mentioned above will improve the QA environment availability to an enormous extent, improve the team's overall performance, and allow the release of great apps much faster.

Testing data complexity

The dynamic and complicated nature of the test data is one of the unique elements of retail applications. A robust automation execution method requires the accuracy of the test facts used - they need to 'clean.' Otherwise, a significant chunk of time is lost in debugging and testing issues instead of designing or programming problems. The solution to this problem can be reached via two pathways, as follows:

• Test data challenges can be addressed with the implementation of service virtualization
• Rest API interfaces can be put to use for configuration and collection of relevant test data

These two methods will guarantee the validity of test data and significantly decrease the time spent investigating testing issues.

Combining API with UI tests

During the search for functional tests, the process is broken up into code writing and test execution. The code writing part of the procedure is divided into two different duties: test preparation and then setup. Generally, it has been observed that the test configuration process takes up more than 50% of the time spent on writing code and test execution. This test development and execution technique results in more than half of the test collapses. This places code writing manifold ahead of any other element behind the cause of unsuccessful tests.

An Application Programming Interface or API can be combined with functional User Interface or UI performance testing to overcome such a challenge. Implementing this can dispose of overhead and lead to short, focused, and available atomic tests.

Take a look at the "AI super-powers" of HeadSpin for performance issue detection to instantly identify issues before they can affect the users:

• Root-cause analysis of the specific performance issues
• Suggestions to improve performance dynamically
• Predictions issued based on user history

Improving feedback service

Building a rapid feedback channel is crucial for every industry. However, it is specifically essential in the environment of mobile app performance testing tools.

A rapid feedback channel is necessary since the environment and all-around testing challenges cannot suit well with the Quality Assurance at times, which can affect the mobile app performance optimization.

With the Global Device Infrastructure provided by HeadSpin, testers can access actual, real-world data with complete precision from all different devices, networks, and locations. The real-world data can be obtained from combinations of:

• Thousands of devices
• 100+ locations
• Real SIM-enabled devices
• Deployed on the mobile carrier and WiFi networks

Testing for specific scenarios

In 2020, more than 80% of consumers bought something online. Of this, South America and Asia accounted for 90% of traffic each. In Q4 of 2021, it was noted that e-commerce customers worldwide spent an average of $3.45 per visit on luxury apparel.

Personalization, localization, and dynamic reach records are some of the particular elements unique for the users of online shopping applications. These are specific for the retail industry only. Among these, personalization is the most challenging to test since it is generally backed up with ML or machine learning algorithms. The technique to try their unique scenarios is to:

• Splitting the visual layer testing from the functional logic layer is the first step to testing.
• Then the functional logic layer or the algorithm is tested on a statistical foundation instead of using single scenarios.

Handling device fragmentation

An extensive range of different people use online shopping applications. Different people with their unique needs lead to the usage of the application in a wide variety of devices that differ in factors like versions, operating systems, screen sizes, manufacturers, and so on. It is imperative to test the application on many browsers and devices.

HeadSpin offers an extensive device infrastructure to conduct tests with multiple combinations of OS and browsers worldwide. It supports 10+ device types, including Android phones and iPhones, and browser testing on laptops is endowed with many leading browsers, including Chrome and Firefox.

Testing in the cloud

QA testing in retail surroundings can be a challenging mission, primarily due to the complexity of the application itself and the surroundings. The problem faced by several IT companies around preserving a lab of devices can be eliminated with the aid of cloud testing. A SaaS (Software as a Service) environment affords improvement in many ways, including scale, time to marketplace (especially for helping new device modules and versions), and the service-level agreement of device availability.

Companies can choose from the various deployment options provided by HeadSpin, including:

• An on-premise lab in the customer premises
• Dedicated or Single Tenant (cloud-hosted)
• Shared or Multi-tenant (cloud-hosted)
• HeadSpin Create Your Own Lab (CYOL automated testing feature)
• On-the-go (automobile testing)
• Hybrid (One or all of the given options)

Testing for accessibility

For companies to be inclusive and considerate, accessibility testing is essential. It can also lead to revenue growth by almost 10% by making it convenient for people with special needs. Hence, testing for accessibility has become essential to ensure that the application is in step with standards, regulations, and expectations.

Summary

March 2021 witnessed a global cart abandonment of 80%. While there can be many factors behind this, one of the major reasons is dissatisfaction. Situations like invalid discount codes and high shipping costs can dissuade a customer from making a purchase. User experience, therefore, is a key factor in ensuring conversion on any e-commerce platform.

Mobile app performance optimization leads to the perfect user experience. This can be achieved using the superior quality mobile app performance testing tools offered by HeadSpin for improved outcomes and revenue of companies. The three leading and unique features are:

• Key Performance Indicators for Quality of Experience
• Tests on any Device and any OS
• Rapid Issue Detection using AI technology

With the implementation of these nine tips from the analysis and experience of HeadSpin, companies can be confident in presenting flawless retail applications to their clients in a fast and smooth manner.

FAQs

1. What should be kept in mind while testing e-commerce apps?

The following things should be kept in mind while testing e-commerce apps:

• There should be no bugs to hinder the user experience.
• The interface should be highly user-friendly.
• The app should be tested against plenty of use cases to ensure there are minimal anomalies.

2. Why is user experience crucial for retail applications?

User experience is a crucial aspect of all e-commerce applications. It is essential to maintain the retail e-commerce application and eliminate inconsistencies through testing and development to minimize the rate of cart abandonment and app drop-off.

3. How does HeadSpin help to optimize retail apps?

HeadSpin offers the following solutions to enhance user experience for retail apps:

• Specific KPIs are available for audio, video, mobile, and much more, as per requirements
• KPIs can be correlated across various applications and touchpoints
• Interaction KPIs can be tailored as per the specific requirements of the online shopping application

4. What are the deployment options offered by HeadSpin?

HeadSpin offers several deployment options as follows:

• On-prem (customer premises)
• Dedicated or Single Tenant (cloud-hosted)
• Shared or Multi-tenant (cloud-hosted)
• HeadSpin Create Your Own Lab (CYOL enables companies to use individual devices to be on-boarded on the HeadSpin Platform and run automated testing. It also empowers businesses to run edge testing where the business is at a particular location and want to test their apps in that location)
• On-the-go (automobile testing)
• Hybrid (One or all of the given options)

Originally Published: https://www.headspin.io/blog/top-9-tips-to-improve-retail-mobile-app-testing