Study: App Testing Essential to Performance, Profitability
Perfecto Mobile recently released a survey on why certain mobile apps fail, and found nearly half of the bugs and errors found in consumer apps were discovered via user feedback. The study also found that most developers lack the resources and time needed to properly test their apps before putting them on the market, which often leads to unhappy customers.
Perfecto Mobile recently released a survey on why certain mobile apps fail, and found nearly half of the bugs and errors found in consumer apps were discovered via user feedback. The study also found that most developers lack the resources and time needed to properly test their apps before putting them on the market, which often leads to unhappy customers.
The study, “Why Mobile Apps Fail,” surveyed nearly 900 mobile app practitioners and end users to discover ways to reduce testing challenges and minimize defects. When asked about how most app issues are discovered, 44 percent of respondents said direct user feedback or bad reviews marked the first time they heard about problems in their apps, as opposed to via in-house testing before release.
When asked about the types of issues most frequently encountered by mobile app users, respondents said user interface issues, performance, functionality and device compatibility were among the top problems. Perfecto noted these issues are often a result of the inherent newness of mobile app development and a lack of automation when it comes to testing for potential problems.
“Enterprises have got to increase their functional testing to confirm that the application works,” said Carlo Cadet, the product evangelist for Perfecto Mobile, in an interview with The VAR Guy. “They have to increase the coverage of the devices they are testing to match the user population. And they have got to include performance testing.”
While it may seem developers are spending less of their budgets on app testing, Cadet said most companies have combined their testing and development budgets into a singular offering, which can lead to a lack of time and personnel to test applications before they reach the market. And because of the many devices developers must test their apps on, the role of app testing often falls to the end users, which can generate bad publicity and harm the company’s brand.
The lack of testing is not only detrimental to app users, but to the developer itself, according to Perfecto. Rushed apps with known defects are less likely to be downloaded, meaning developers are essentially shooting themselves in the foot by rushing their products into the world before ensuring they are reliable. While developers can always rely on patches to fix errors after release, this practice signals a general lack of quality control and can tarnish customer reception of the app.
“Mobile end users are vocal,” said Cadet. “They’re vocal on social media, and the feedback loop to companies is quick, and it can really poison the well in terms of what [media outlets] write.”
In response to this, many developers are shifting away from the large-scale yearly software releases often conducted by companies such as Apple (APPL) and focusing on quietly releasing one or two updates at a time over the course of a few months. By taking the publicity away from major updates and lessening the number of changes made at a single time, developers can better control the chances of causing major defects to their existing products and angering a large percentage of users.
Of course, Perfecto recommends that developers use its cloud-based solutions including its MobileCloud platform to inspect and test app quality before releasing new apps to reduce the chances of causing any major PR or performance blunders.
