That’s where mobile performance testing makes a difference.

But before we dive into that, you should know what a mobile application is.

Mobile application software is designed to run on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, providing users with similar services accessed on PCs. Today, technology is above everything, and mobile applications have surpassed even desktop applications in popularity.

Mobile application performance testing, however, differs from web application performance testing. It ensures your app meets high user standards by evaluating its stability, speed, and responsiveness across different devices and networks.

For example, when laptops and desktops access web applications, poor network quality, packet loss, or latency can cause minor disruptions.

In terms of mobile applications, every factor — from network quality and packet loss to device type, bandwidth, and latency — must be meticulously evaluated.

Below are different types of mobile applications:

• Browser-based applications
• Native applications
• Hybrid applications

What is Mobile App Performance Testing?

We live in the DevOps era, where rapid development and deployment are critical objectives for most organizations. Automation testing tools significantly accelerate deployment, and performance testing is essential to measure an app’s capabilities in varied environments.

Mobile app performance testing evaluates an app’s performance under different conditions, such as high traffic loads, to ensure a seamless user experience.

Why is Mobile App Performance Testing necessary?

1. User retention and satisfaction

Mobile users will likely abandon an app that crashes frequently or responds slowly. Performance testing ensures your app meets speed and stability standards, improving user satisfaction and retention.

2. Scalability and load handling

Load testing is crucial to checking the functioning of any application. The testers increase the number of virtual users for a certain period to determine the exact load threshold of the application. This process is also known as endurance/volume testing.

Load testing clarifies your system’s capacity by handling a certain number of users at a time. It also determines the application’s behavior during traffic from different geolocations. Load testing is essential to keeping your application on point and should be integrated continuously.

3. Device and network compatibility

Mobile apps run on various devices and connect via diverse network conditions. Performance testing checks the app’s responsiveness and stability across different devices, OS versions, and network speeds, ensuring consistency in user experience.

4. Resource optimization

Performance testing reveals how much battery, memory, and processing power the app consumes. This is crucial for optimizing app performance on mobile devices where resource constraints like battery life can impact the user experience.

Parameters for Mobile App Performance Testing

Mobile app performance testing is measured based on the following parameters:

1. Device performance

Tracks app startup time, battery usage, and memory consumption
Measures app performance on various software and hardware configurations
Checks the app’s interaction with background applications to identify potential glitches

2. Server/API performance

Evaluates data transfer speeds to and from the server
Analyzes API calls and their impact on app performance

3. Network performance

Studies latency, speed, and packet loss under varying network conditions
Checks packet loss to ensure data integrity

Procedure for Mobile Application Performance Testing

I. Line up test intent and business requirements

It’s crucial to determine the business objectives before executing performance testing of mobile applications. When the objectives are clear, it becomes easier to position the application as intended. Once defined, testers prioritize assessing the application’s functions.

II. Recognize Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Setting a benchmark is the second crucial step, indicating whether your testing was successful or not. For mobile performance testing tools, below are the KPIs that must be considered:

• Rate of error
• Highest response time
• Average response time
• Maximum number of requests
• The highest and average number of active users per device and operating system

Outlined scenarios:

Testers often fail because they do not prioritize test cases or pre-select critical areas to evaluate the application’s performance. To avoid this, outline various packet scenarios essential for achieving the best and most reliable performance.

III. Imitate a live testing environment

A live testing environment is necessary to understand the application’s user experience. System emulators simulate the operating system’s essential frameworks, providing testers with a similar display and feel of the interface.

IV. Align the testing perspective with the comprehensive development process

Testing needs to align with an organization’s overall development structure. Continuous integration functions are essential for monitoring regular bug reports and regression tests, allowing efficient communication, quick decision-making, and cooperation among all involved parties.

V. Track network lags, latency, and bandwidth

Mobile devices connect to the internet via third-party carriers, causing latency and bandwidth to fluctuate over time and across different devices. Therefore, considering network variances is critical when optimizing the application’s performance to deliver a flawless user experience.

Key Mobile App Performance Testing Tools

1. TestGrid

TestGrid is an AI-powered end-to-end testing platform. One of its core capabilities is that it allows you to conduct mobile performance testing using the TestOS tool. You can use real mobile devices — from various Samsung models to different iPhone versions — to run tests and monitor the results.

The platform is invaluable for spotting vulnerabilities and determining what needs to be done to make the app more scalable. Want repeated execution of tests with high precision? TestGrid allows that, preventing errors in each release and lowering your mean-time-to-resolution (MTTR).

Moreover, TestGrid integrates seamlessly with almost all leading continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. You can create and manage tests by recording your actions and converting them into a script.

2. Firebase Performance Monitoring

Firebase Performance Monitoring is a service that helps you understand how well your Apple, Android, and web apps perform. It collects performance data from the app using the Performance Monitoring SDK and then reviews and analyzes it in the Firebase console.

You can capture the app’s performance in specific situations, like loading a new screen or displaying a new interactive feature.

3. New Relic Mobile

New Relic Mobile provides deeper visibility into the performance and crash troubleshooting of your Android, iOS, or hybrid mobile apps. Get complete app visibility — from backend APIs to frontend devices. Easily ingest and search any volume of on-prem and cloud data and segment it how you want. You can see and manage all your errors from a single inbox.

4. Apache JMeter

Apache JMeter is an open-source Java application for load testing functional behavior and measuring performance.

Although originally designed for web apps, Apache JMeter has since expanded to other test functions, including mobile. It can simulate multiple users sending requests to a target server and analyze metrics, such as latency and throughput, across static and dynamic resources.

5. LoadRunner

OpenText’s LoadRunner is a performance testing tool that can simulate thousands of users and record and analyze the performance of crucial application components under load. It offers several protocols for mobile app testing, such as HTTP/HTTPS and WebSocket, and can capture network traffic from mobile devices.

6. Digital.ai

Digital.ai is a scalable web and mobile app testing solution. It provides comprehensive reports with deep network and test data, enabling rapid root cause analysis. It also monitors device vitals on real devices, such as CPU, memory, battery, and more. It can also quickly identify regressions and performance degradations by comparing tests over time.

7. Apptim

Powered by GenAI, Apptim promises to improve mobile app performance analysis. Existing manual or automated tests using in-house devices or cloud device farms can be used to find performance issues before going live.

You can also find out how much time users are spending on specific actions. Apptim integrates client-side performance tests for common use cases in your app into a CI/CD pipeline and sets up alerts for key performance indicators.

Limitations of Mobile App Performance Testing

Performance testing on mobile apps is more challenging than PC software testing because of its wide variety of devices, vast users, and different device-specific features. Here’s a list of the primary issues that arise during mobile app performance testing:

1. Device variation

Numerous device versions exist on the market, which creates challenges since the application must perform efficiently on all of them. Conducting testing becomes burdensome when gathering phones and devices from various users, especially given the limited access to a wide range of mobile devices.

2. Various device features

It is challenging to emulate all the features of different mobile devices using online tools. Device features like GPS, camera, microphone, embedded memory, operating system, processor, and sensors vary from one phone to another.

This creates immense complexities; hence, understanding that the performance testing results for mobile apps are optimum gets a little costlier and time-consuming.

3. High battery usage

Battery usage testing is a critical aspect of mobile app testing. In recent years, this has become a significant challenge due to the rise in battery-draining apps. Reducing battery drain is essential for delivering a good user experience.

4. Multiple UI variations

Page layouts and system fonts differ across operating systems. An application’s publishing process can be delayed or even halted if Google Play or App Store guidelines are not followed or met.

Conclusion

Every day, the world is transforming digitally; plenty of mobile applications are available on app stores. Due to their easy-to-use features, users can effortlessly switch from one application to another.

However, building a quality mobile app is not easy. Regular mobile app performance testing is necessary to ensure the application is efficient and delivers the expected results.

Source: This article was originally published at testgrid.io.