Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
From a business’ sales strategy to the type of coffee it decides to stock in the company lounge, every decision boils down to this: How will it impact this year’s earnings? That’s what makes testing critical for any business with a mobile app: Having a poor-performing app is just like throwing money away.
There are three primary ways mobile testing translates into more cash for the company: corporate image, performance and speed to market. Read on for the details.
Testing and Corporate Image
Treat your mobile application like the face of your brand.
The majority of time people spend on anything digital is over a mobile application. Users spend more time on their smartphones than they do on their desktop and even television. From a business perspective that means any customer, both real and potential, will experience your brand over a mobile app more than on your TV commercials, physical billboards and even website.
They will see you over their phone more than in your store.
Mobile testing makes sure that the lights are on in your business, and that the air conditioner is working. We take for granted that when we enter a place of business everything is working properly. If something is off, we immediately recognize it. The same holds for a mobile application. If a function is not working right or is performing slowly, it will impact the user’s decision whether or not to become a customer.
If it is working perfectly, the larger audience that mobility commands will generate a larger customer interest in your brand.
Testing and Application Performance
The faster the app, the happier the customers.
The instinct for testing applications is to make sure the code itself is working. This is the basis of functional testing. In the age of desktop apps that work directly over the computer’s operating system, or even web apps that work over a local connection, the speed at which your application moved was usually assured.
Mobility has changed the rules. A mobile app working on a portable device can operate over any of the 400 mobile networks worldwide. It can have to brave poor network conditions, being confined to an elevator, or even riding through a tunnel. All of these different environments affect the speed at which your functions execute, which is no longer static.
If a function moves to slowly, the app will be considered broken. In fact, 90 percent of the mobile applications on a phone right now won’t be there in a year’s time. This is the need for performance, namely network virtualization testing: It makes sure your application provides potential customers with a smooth experience.
A smooth experience is the best way to guarantee return business, and retaining a customer is 5 times more cost-effective than acquiring a new one.
Testing and Speed to Market
Time is more important than money—with the right tools.
There are 20,000 mobile devices out there, running on four different type of mobile operating systems, all with their own set of versions both new and old. Every day there are devices and operating systems enhancing their capabilities with expanded capacity and new features. This demands that your mobile application adapt by including new features and capacities that capitalize on what the platforms are now offering.
The key to DevOps is to develop, test, and release the most cutting-edge version of your mobile application as quickly as possible without sacrificing quality in speed or execution.
Even if it is for only a short time, offering features your competitors are not ready to release is like having monopoly on a part of your market: You stand alone. Those customers looking for the best app will have only you to go to.
Mobile testing is the most arduous step in the DevOps process. A quality test automation tool that includes both performance and functional testing, connecting to a mobile lab enabled by a mobile cloud-testing tool, will accelerate your mobile testing while shortening the release time for your latest app incarnation.
Conclusion
In the age of mobile, everything that impacts your mobile application impacts your bottom line. Mobile testing reduces expenses, retains customers and enables your development team to design and release an application that can add solid growth to your company’s coffers.
