Real Device Testing: Ensuring High-Quality User Experiences
Mobile applications are essential in today’s environment and have the power to influence users in a significant way. More than ever, users now have higher expectations for both mobile and web applications. They anticipate them to operate flawlessly, without interruption or lag.
Improving the website or mobile app’s user experience can benefit the company in many ways. Therefore, putting resources into comprehensive application testing is necessary to ensure pleasant user experiences on mobile devices. The testing industry has long been used to real device testing. The benefits of testing applications on real devices can never be wholly overlooked, even with increasing automation.
This article will discuss testing on real devices for better user experience testing. Let’s first go over some fundamentals connected to the topic, such as what real device testing is, the reason developers prefer testing on real devices, why the user experience is most crucial, and why it is so essential to conduct tests on real devices.
Real device testing
The testing market has long been dedicated to testing mobile applications on real devices. The benefits of testing applications on real devices can never be fully discarded, despite increasing automation.
A real device is an actual hardware (together with the operating system and built-in support tools) that will be used to run the application in a real setting. The mobile phone or tablet is what is used for mobile applications. It is a real monitoring device for use in industrial, scientific, or healthcare applications.
A real device is a set of software and hardware with Internet access that enables users to carry out certain tasks. To test apps, QA teams utilize real, on-premise devices. They do this to see how well the app works under different conditions depending on battery, memory storage, GPS, and other aspects.
Real device testing is a method used to test mobile applications and websites using manual and automated testing techniques on real devices. These can be anything from determining whether a button works properly, to figuring out whether the application stops or crashes on particular devices when memory storage problems arise.
What makes developers favor testing on real devices?
Here are just a few of the many reasons why developers prefer testing on real devices:
- By testing on real devices, developers or testers can evaluate mobile applications in an actual environment and view the application’s behavior just as the end user would.
- It enables developers to quickly test the brightness and screen resolutions of the device in various lighting scenarios.
- Since all hardware, including Bluetooth, GPS, and built-in sensors like wifi, is used in real-time by real devices, this enables the developer to instantly spot any odd behavior of the application.
- Testing on real devices is quicker than testing on emulators or simulations.
- Assists the developer in analyzing battery performance concerns like overheating or drainage.
- Test results for incoming interruptions like push notifications, messages, or calls can also be evaluated by developers.
- It enables the developer to examine any flaws that the user might encounter by testing the applications on real operating systems.
Why the user experience is of the utmost significance
When encouraging user loyalty and consistency, the user experience is crucial. A positive user experience is intended to uphold the applications’ reputation and keep users committed to the product, which will lower bounce and increase retention. Additionally, a positive user experience can aid in SEO, raising the website’s overall SERP (Search Engine rating Page) rating. This raises the site’s general visibility and encourages additional visitors and traffic.
How user experience is improved by testing on real devices
Large organizations with dedicated mobile application development teams execute their mobile tests on real mobile devices. They receive more accurate test results and real-world feedback as a result.
It is excellent to test websites and web applications on a variety of real devices and browsers to improve user experience by catching all issues that might arise in real-world situations.
A real device can be used to assess the application’s usability from the user’s point of view with greater convenience and flexibility.
To identify issues and understand how the app will function in real-world scenarios, it is crucial to assess the functionality, structure, content clarity, and navigation flow of the website on real devices.
However, testing across numerous browser and device combinations is expensive. Additionally, maintaining actual devices or devices on-site might be risky and unaffordable due to the constantly changing mobile device and operating system landscape, which may have a negative effect on the frequency of new mobile app releases.
Therefore, moving towards a real device cloud is a preferable choice for effectively testing mobile applications across a variety of devices without having to physically arrange various combinations.
Real device cloud
A real device Cloud provides users with immediate access to thousands of actual iOS, Android, and other mobile devices through a desktop browser. It is a testing environment for mobile apps that are hosted in the cloud. As a result, app developers and QA testers can test their applications in real-world situations, evaluate real user experiences, and guarantee that the organization’s intended users are adequately covered.
Why it’s crucial to think about testing on real devices
The advantages of running tests on real devices are numerous. The following are a few key benefits of real device testing, which ultimately result in high-quality user experiences.
Proficiency in conducting tests in real conditions
Real devices are operated with fingertips to mimic real-world operations. This makes it easier to test applications in a real-world setting since they will be used in a range of environments. As a result, all relevant everyday factors are taken into account, such as connectivity issues, device problems, weather conditions, and many more. As a result, testers can receive real-world input that enhances the user experience.
Testing across platforms
The performance of an app in various scenarios may be compared and analyzed with the aid of real device testing across a variety of platforms, operating systems, and versions. Since accurate device testing provides true findings and reveals the performance and functional problems of the device or environment, QA teams don’t need to worry about false positives or negatives.
Improved hardware support
Real devices support a wide range of functions, including cameras, GPS, accelerometers, facial recognition, and fingerprint capture. Real-world testing on real devices enables testing, guarantees the best functionality of the features, and provides positive user experiences.
Finding problems with usability
To provide a positive user experience, testers must run tests on several devices and browsers due to the highly dispersed nature of the mobile device market.
On actual devices, usability problems are frequently easier to spot. It is simple to fix these problems using a real device with seamless usability testing, whether it be an unresponsive button or an inadequate system configuration.
Additionally, thorough device testing confirms the app’s user interface, appearance in both natural light and darkness, and several other real-world scenario aspects, ultimately evaluating the app’s usefulness and user satisfaction.
Faster bug discovery
Before the app’s release, real device testing makes it easier to find and remove issues and inconsistencies. This improves user experiences throughout an app’s lifecycle.
Testing in parallel
In many cases, a real device on cloud infrastructure is suited for large-scale testing, where apps may be evaluated on many different devices at once with parallel testing. In addition to improving testing efficiency and user experience for mobile apps, this significantly decreases the time and effort spent on testing.
Automated and manual testing on LambdaTest’s real-device cloud
An on-premise device lab can be expensive and difficult to set up and manage. The ability to work and test remotely is necessary for app developers and testers since it eliminates the expense, hassle, and risk associated with the on-site maintenance of real devices.
By using a cloud service, testing may be done on real devices, saving time and money on device maintenance and updating. By running tests simultaneously on several devices at once, the real device cloud also aids in streamlining release cycles and accelerating the testing process.
LambdaTest is a cloud-based platform for real device testing that enables users to test their website across a variety of operating systems and web browsers before making it available to real users. By making available all the real devices via cloud services,
LambdaTest makes it easier to conduct tests. As a result, testing becomes more rapid, accurate, and effective. Additionally, it provides capabilities like Geolocation testing, network simulation, and others that are crucial for testing.
LambdaTest is a cross-browser compatibility testing platform where testers can instantly access a cloud of more than 3000 real devices, browsers, and operating system versions online to test their websites and mobile apps both manually and automatically.
It can be smoothly linked with common CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Jira, and automated testing frameworks like Selenium and Appium. Using this platform, testers can execute automated Selenium testing for cross-browser testing of web applications. Teams can also conduct automated Appium testing for mobile apps or interactive app testing.
Testers can write and run their tests more quickly, on a larger scale, and with higher test coverage using LambdaTest’s automated testing platform and mobile devices cloud. This frees up their time so the team can innovate, speed up testing, and eventually release more quickly.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that due to the rapidly expanding Smartphone demand, mobile testing is steadily becoming more and more important. Testing on a real device is more accurate and effective in delivering a high-quality user experience.
