With the nomadic grocery growing explosively and customer prospect increasing just as rapidly, today ’ s mobile app development and QA squad are under awful press to deliver constant update for their apps while providing a continuous and seamless exploiter experience. Knowing incisively what to test at each stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) can help your teams find and fix bugs faster and originally and keep your customers felicitous.

The original automated essay pyramid doesn ’ t account for different use cases, part, or yet beta examination, which puts roving app development and testing teams at a serious disadvantage. This is why we at Sauce Labs have reimagined Kwo Ding & # x27; s originalmobile test automation pyramidfor today & # x27; s DevOps teams.

Before we dive into the nomadic trial automation pyramid 2.0, let ’ s review the original test automation pyramid.

What is the Test Automation Pyramid?

The examination automation pyramid 1.0 is a testing strategy for wandering applications and websites where trial are automated across a mix of user interface (UI), API or integration (service), and unit examination. While every projection, scheme, and delivery team is unique, that mix should broadly seem as a pyramid.

The “ Test Pyramid ” concept was created by Mike Cohn and has been indite about by intellection leadership across the manufacture. The mechanization tryout pyramid 1.0 (illustrated below) flips the original test pyramid by place unit testing at the groundwork followed by API or consolidation (service) and then UI testing. By volume of tests completed, the bottom of the pyramid contains the almost tests and the top contains the least.

The Mobile Test Automation Pyramid 2.0

Our reimagined wandering trial automation pyramid is designed to guide mobile app development and QA team on what to test for each type of mobile app at each stage of the SDLC. This new approach considers not only the specific testing needs of different personas, but also scaling mobile test mechanisation and the mobile use case developers are really try for.

The mobile test automation pyramid 2.0 can be applied to the following use cases:

1. Web peregrine app quiz

2. Hybrid app screen

3. Native app testing

By mass of tests completed, the bottom of the pyramid contains the most tryout and the top control the least.

Behold, the Sauce Labs mobile test automation pyramid 2.0:

Releasing to production with confidence take the right quality and debugging puppet. Our wandering examination mechanisation pyramid 2.0 delivers the insights that set us up for success. Let ’ s dive into each layer of the pyramid and the best drill for each.

Bottom Layer: Test on Desktop Browsers

For web nomadic apps and aboriginal apps, the bottom of the test pyramid starts with desktop browser testing.

Running your mobile site on emulated browser windows is a fast and scalable way totest compatibility on different browsers. At this level you should focus on system testing, responsive design, and the overall optical feel. This is also a great time to do cross-platform examination, however desktop browser examination will be circumscribed consider visual testing, native desegregation, and the fact that you are not using a true mobile device. Remember, any visual examination hither will be futile because visuals will provide differently on a peregrine device.

While desktop browser testing should not replace peregrine testing, it helps to see whether the website behaves as it should. But for more info on if our mobile website or intercrossed app is behaving properly we will climb to the next level of the pyramid.

Pro tip: Tools like SUSA can handle this autonomously — upload your app and get results without writing a single test script.

Middle Layer: Test on Emulators and Simulators

The next level of the mobile test automation pyramid 2.0 include testing your mobile web, hybrid, and aboriginal mobile apps onemulators and simulator.

Since native apps don ’ t unfeignedly exist in mobile web, this is the first level of the pyramid where testing applies to them. Let ’ s honkytonk into how and when you should examine on emulators and simulators.

Emulators and simulators give you the option of running your mobile app on either an Android emulator with Chrome or an iOS simulator with Safari. This is another fast and scalable solution that introduces native desegregation such as a keyboard, dropdown box, pickerwheels, and so on. Emulators and simulators also provide a better mind of the actual user experience.

At this level, your tryout focus should be on functional flow, such as the pawl paths through the website and app. You can besides centre on the specific interactions with the native consolidation, engagement with a keyboard for model. This is likewise a good level to mimic actual exploiter behavior by examine gestures such as pinch/zoom/swipe. Visuals are more accurate hither than the premature level, but emulators solely provide vanilla or gunstock Android, not with the skins that we will see on actual different user device.

At this level, you also lack real insight into device performance and real interoperability. To find that, we climb to the apex of our pyramid: real devices.

Top Layer: Test on Existent Devices

Existent device testingallows you to test the useableness of your app under existent conditions so you can control all visual (UI) components, interactional features (gesture), and integrating (camera, keyboard, drop-down menus) employment as designed.

At this level, you test your app on real Android or iOS devices. We recommend choosing a set of existent devices that best symbolize your end exploiter. See our blog onhow to choose peregrine devices for real device quizfor more information.

Real gimmick testing render additional insights, especially for hybrid and native apps, in wish to visual examination, since you are scat tests in a existent environment on an actual gimmick. The OS on real devices, especially Android, has more impact on the visuals than you can see on an emulator or simulator. This is likewise a good time to concenter on the aboriginal functionality of integrations such as biometrics and image injection.

Mobile error monitoring is helpful at this level. When embedded in the hybrid app and used during manual and machine-controlled testing (Appium/native frameworks), you will get the most accurate brainstorm in where the app uses too much memory/CPU or too many errors are being generated.

Bonus Layer: Run Mobile Beta Tests on Real Devices

At the top of the pyramid with hybrid apps and native apps, you can runwandering beta testson the devices of existent users. This provides the real-time user feedback and meaningful bug study you need before releasing the app to the app stores.

Focus at this level should be technical, where bugs receive the highest priority, and conceptual, where the purpose of the app will be tested by existent users.

You can also use beta exam to accumulate error information post-release. This information can help you understand the type of issues users will encounter in product (errors, bent, collapse), as easily as help developers prioritize the errors to fix.

Modern DevOps Teams Need a Modern Test Automation Pyramid

The mobile test automation pyramid 2.0 afterthought mobile app test as a holistic approach that focuses on which tests to run, where in the SDLC they should be run, and how many of certain tests should be run. This new approach is designed to withdraw bottlenecks and inject character at every stage of the SDLC.

By following these best practices you are taking a step toward providing your customers with the customer experience they are look. As we know, every experience matters, so there is no better clip to get started than today.