Performance Testing of Mobile Apps: The Ultimate Guide

Introduction

Mobile applications are more extensively used than traditional desktop programs in today’s technological world. The proportion of people who use their cell phones to access most apps has risen dramatically.

In addition, when using the program, the end-user will expect a positive response. As a result, while building mobile applications, the developer must bear this in mind.

Performance testing is now essential, whether for a standard online site or a mobile application. If an application goes live without being performance-tested, and the end-user encounters performance concerns such as a delayed response, the end-user will seek out another program that will perform better.

Performance testing is both expensive and time-consuming. As a result, many clients avoid performance testing, although it assists significantly with production concerns. As a result, any application must be thoroughly tested before being made available to the end-user.

This blog article will cover mobile app performance optimization, technologies that might aid app performance testing, performance indicators to consider, and significant problems encountered during performance & UI testing.

What do you understand about mobile application performance testing?

Performance testing determines the app’s speed and other characteristics. Every app undergoes performance evaluation to maximize customer experience and to enhance app performance optimization.

Performance testing is critical since it determines an app’s long-term viability across different platforms. To execute these tests, QA engineers create realistic user experiences. This is the main distinction between functionality and performance testing.

When performing performance testing on an application, it is critical to confirm that the software meets the SLA (Service Level Agreement). An SLA is a written agreement describing the quality and quantity of service a vendor will provide to its customers. Speed, user-friendliness, volume testing, scalability, usability testing, load testing, stress testing, and other mobile app performance testing areas are determined. The test should guarantee that the software works even with no internet connection.

The following steps make up the overall process of mobile app performance testing:

Connectivity test: Most applications require an online connection to function. The app’s developers must ensure that the programme works even if there is no internet connection.

Location stimulator: The test must determine that a GPS-specific app does not change dramatically when the location changes. It’s an important test.

Security testing: When you use an app, it collects data from your device and stores it on a server. The performance test must ensure that the data stored on the server is secure and private.

Let’s understand what a Mobile Application is.

A set of predefined functionalities meant to be performed on mobile devices is a mobile application. Not all mobile apps are created equal. There are three categories of mobile applications, distinguished by the technology used to create them.

Types of mobile applications include:

Native Mobile Applications:

Native Mobile Applications operate on your smartphones and run on the mobile device’s operating system. They deliver excellent results while also being extremely dependable. These programs can also access other smartphone apps, such as images and your address book.

Native programs are accessible in the app store for mobile devices. We have Google Play for Android and iTunes for iPhone. Hence, these applications are downloaded and installed on mobile devices from their respective shops.

Calculator, calendar, and Facebook applications are examples of native applications.

Hybrid Applications:

Hybrid applications are similar to native apps in that they run inside a native container, are a hybrid of the two, and render application web pages using the device browser rather than the actual browser.

Instagram, Yelp, and other hybrid applications are examples.

Web-Based Mobile Applications:

Web-based mobile applications are not installed on the device and operate directly from the browser.

Examples are online gaming, social networking sites, and other web-based mobile applications.

Performance metrics for mobile applications

Every app that is evaluated has the potential to improve. There’s always something to work on. In order to achieve excellent quality, an app must undergo numerous levels of testing, adjustments, and re-testing. To evaluate the quality of apps, we must first comprehend the various performance measures:

Crash rate: Everyone who has ever used an app has encountered a crash. The crash rate is computed by dividing the total number of app launches by the total number of hits over the same period. The optimum crash rate ranges between 1 to 2 per cent, based on the app’s usage, maturity, and other factors.

Average response time: The average reaction time of an app is the time it takes for it to load and open on a smartphone. The average response time should not exceed 3–4 seconds, as consumers are more likely to delete an app with a longer response time. Maximum response time: When a command is entered into the program, it should respond in less than a second. The app will be deemed inefficient if it has a long response time.

Network errors: Sometimes, network connectivity isn’t optimal, such as a wrong network or an HTTP fault, causing the app to respond slowly.

Factors affecting mobile app performance

Several factors can influence a mobile app’s performance, including:

Client-side device: Different operating systems on different devices display different apps in different ways. User interference, screen touch, RAM, and other factors can affect how an app appears. As a result, different instruments should be considered when conducting tests.

Backend/API: Response time is critical when an app connects to servers using APIs. Various factors, such as network difficulties and API requests performed by the program, can affect response time.

Network performance: A network malfunction can also impair the mobile app version. Some users may need to use 2G/3G or have poor network access. Even in these situations, the app should provide the best results possible.

Mobile App Performance Testing Checklist:

It is critical to test the performance of a mobile app before releasing it. Performance testing is carried out to ensure that:

• Determination of the RAM required to run this application
• To test the app’s speed and response time on various networks and under multiple conditions.
• Ensure a realistic user experience in a variety of network scenarios.
• If there are several connectivities, make sure the desired results are obtained.
• Ensure that the application does not crash.
• Assuring that mobile applications run smoothly when connected by data, Wi-Fi, or other means
• Monitoring the mobile API usage bottlenecks and uptime
• To ensure the highest possible number of concurrent users
• Finally, to test the mobile app’s capabilities.

So, how do you test these mobile applications?

We need to set up an environment with emulators and real devices to test such mobile applications. Mobile emulators are programs that we can install on our laptops or desktop computers to simulate a mobile application or platform.

As a result, we can produce a large load for our load testing using these emulators.

The other way is to use genuine devices; in this case, we have the device in our hands and can see how the program performs on each device. We don’t have the option to generate the load with real devices, which is our primary goal, but we require numerous real devices.

However, actual devices can be used to evaluate the behaviour of an application on a given device, but emulators must be used to produce load.

During mobile app performance testing, it is crucial to figure out where the end-user will be accessing the application. It’s critical to know whether people connect from the same city, country, or worldwide. Without keeping this in mind, our results will be wrong if we plan our testing.

Check the following under each:

Device Performance:

• Memory consumption
• Hardware and software variations
• Server/API Performance:
• Usage with other applications
• An application running in the background
• Application startup time
• Battery time while using the application

Server/API Performance:

• Data to and from the server.
• Server downtime
• API calls generated

Network Performance:

• Packet Loss
• Network Speed

As a result, when creating the methodology for mobile application performance testing, you must consider all of the above factors and the scope and requirements of your project.

Takeaway

Mobile app performance testing is required to ensure that the app is useful and achieves the desired outcome. Using a mobile app performance test, you can analyze data like average crash time, app response time, and network problems. It also aids in the resolution of these issues. This is crucial for a company because its legitimacy is built on the app. This impacts the company’s revenue and the size of the expansion. If the app does well, it will receive more downloads, recommendations, and popularity, increasing revenue. When creating a performance test, the developer must carefully evaluate all relevant fields, such as various devices, key performance considerations, and scenario prioritization. The necessity of planning and strategizing cannot be overstated.

This article taught us to cover mobile app performance optimization, technologies that might aid app performance testing, performance indicators to consider, and significant problems encountered during UI performance testing.

To sum-up:

• We learned about mobile application performance testing.
• We found that mobile apps, resource utilizers, virtual users, emulators, and multiple test strategies are required for performance testing.
• We learned that app performance is measured in three categories.
• Device performance
• Server performance
• Network performance
• Compact mobile device sizes, resource availability, price, and budgeting are significant issues in performance testing.
• We also learned how to test these mobile applications.