How Safe is your Mobile Banking App?

According to a report prepared by KPMG, number of mobile banking users will get doubled by 2019 and reach a quarter of the global population. With the emergence of mobile banking apps, a huge percentage of banking transactions have already moved away from traditional methods like using services of ATMs or bank branches. In light of this progression, banks are continually striving to introduce innovative and advanced mobile services. It goes without saying that the end users’ expectations are also rapidly increasing. Such expectations include the highest level of performance, support for a never-ending number of mobile devices and a complete package of features that can empower them to meet their routine banking needs seamlessly. In this scenario, testing of mobile banking apps has become extremely crucial to ensure a flawless and smooth user experience. Banking applications deal with absolutely confidential financial data, which has made their testing one of the most difficult ones with some major and mandatory elements. Let’s have a look at 4 key elements that have to be considered while testing mobile banking apps.

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Getting right kind of test data

Different types of misuses can happen if a customer’s personal information gets uncovered in public domain. Hence, to prevent this, most countries have strict regulatory requirements that often make the personal information inaccessible to the testers. To produce right kind of test data, a tester should consider retail banking apps that validate testing over different devices. For instance, in case of two customers having short and long names and different account balances, testing the app with these data may ensure the intactness of the screen layout in different cases. Merging of synthetic data creation with data masking empowers the tester to deal with this problem successfully. The personal information is obscured while the synthetic test data is generated after actual comprehension of the business flow.

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Implementing DevOps Quality Approach – Different principles

Continuous testing and quality monitoring together with continuous test development based on TDD, BDD and shift-less, as well as shift-right testing are all crucial for DevOps quality. At the same time, performing quality checks at different points in the DevOps cycle is also the responsibility of everyone involved. For example, the emphasis at continuous build is to find if the build has the potential of interfering with the operation while validating usability and functionality has focused upon at continuous development. The focal point of continuous integration is to validate security, performance, usability. To ensure quality in DevOps, clear understanding of potential risks and priorities with respect to business performance and customer value is also crucial. Let’s take a closer look at some key aspects that drive an integrated DevOps quality approach.

An automated testing process and continuous quality monitoring:

These are related to the continuous build, development and deployment process. With a completely automated process of testing, every aspect (from test planning, test strategy, test environment set up to test data provision and test execution including functional and non-functional testing) is covered. Validation checks are performed with quality analysis tools while newly created/defined validation checks are automatically included in the complete set of existing quality checks. Based on instant user reports and production incidents, quality level of applications is monitored closely and continuously by setting up a quality automation framework.

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Importance of Mobile Application Testing

The coming of android and the open source infrastructure has brought about a revolutionary development trend. This has ushered in an age of mobile technology, wherein business activities, and customer interactions are driven out of mobile applications. As application development picks up pace and increases in complexity, mobile application testing has to match up as well. Here is a look at some of the important aspects of the testing phase, which determines the overall success and popularity of a mobile application.

1.      Test User workflow and functionality

A very important aspect of mobile application testing is testing the user cases for workflows and the basic functionality. A recent research into the bad reviews about mobile apps highlights almost half of the bad reviews can amount to the bad design of flow in the application. Ace mobile development experts understand that the client experience with mobile applications will be limited to the flow of functionalities and if that lags or hangs, there is bound to be a negative feedback from the viewers.

2.      Stress Testing of the Mobile Application

Most mobile developers and testers tend to stick to a module testing approach, wherein they just test individual parts of the mobile app. This might work well in theory, but the real and most accurate test of any mobile application should be under extreme conditions. Thus basing your testing strategy on mobile testing solutions which are able to create robust testing scenarios becomes crucial. Also, most such platforms such as SOSTA’s CloudTest would give testers the ability to tweak scenarios to create a stress environment. Parameters such as system connectivity, time out time etc can be altered to create stress test scenarios.

3.      Network is the Key

In accordance with the design of the mobile applications, thenetwork plays a pivotal role in the functionality and hence has to be given due attention to while testing. It is important to ensure mobile applications switch seamlessly from Wifi to 3G/4G networks while causing minimal impact on the user experience. Another important aspect is the offline working feature which most mobile applications today have been designed to support. Mobile application testers should ensure that the work folders in the application are synced seamlessly between the offline mode, and when the user connects to the network.

4.      Testing on Varied Hardware

A host of operating platforms and hardware devices are prevalently used by customers today, and as a mobile application developer, it is important to ensure that their applications work glitch free on all of these. It is thus important to incorporate hardware platform compatibility during the mobile application testing routines, for an enjoyable user experience.

The Essence of Agile Testing

Testing is an integral part of any development cycle. Initially, the entire process used to be step by step where after the codes were written by the programmer, the testing team would take over and a long back and forth cycle would begin. These days to shorten the development cycle new types of testing methodologies have been integrated. Agile testing is a methodology in which there is a continuous iteration of the development and testing throughout the software development cycle. As a result, both the coding and development go hand in hand with testing.

What is different with Agile testing?

With Agile, the buzz word is continuous. An agile testing company is into continuous development, continuous integration and continuous delivery while simultaneously doing a continuous delivery.  While this summarizes the entire concept of this kind of testing, it is important that we understand how it actually benefits a company. When many things happen at the same time, it helps speed up the process. Companies that have adopted agile testing services are able to deliver the product much faster. It is not just the speed that is of consequence here. Continuous integration and communication with the end user, developer and tester ensures that the product is as perfect as it could be. Earlier, companies would launch a product and after some time launch its newer version with more features and lesser bugs and continue to do so every few months till the product itself was phased out. With Agile testing, the companies are able to reduce the development cycles. This has in turn shown positive affects on the revenues. 

Adopting Agile testing

When a company adopts Agile testing for its products, it is bringing about a change in the entire work culture. The teams which earlier worked as independent units and only passed on the product after it was finished up to a certain level now work as a cohesive whole. They have to implement strategies on every aspect of the work cycle. So right from how to approach requirement, architecture, design to coding and testing - all evolve to new heights. The teams now have to look at realistic time frames for delivery without getting trapped between the development and testing cycles. So the time schedules are adhered to. In fact, time is fixed before the scope is outlined. Quality and testing also are done on the basis of the new timelines. Instead of waiting for months to look at the product being developed, the next checkpoint is always round the corner for the team to evaluate. It is a win win process for all and therefore it is not a surprise that it is becoming popular.

Source: https://techarcisblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/the-essence-of-agile-testing/

How Does Software Testing Help Businesses?

Software testing is generally considered a cost source. Managers usually think of compromising with the quality of software testing to reduce its cost. And at times, they prefer to avoid it completely. Reason? They think that its contribution for building up revenue is not great. However, this belief isn’t true. In fact, Software Testing is very useful for optimization of business. It ensures fast system performance even under highest workload. 

Need of Software Testing

Applications and software are intended to facilitate different tasks within a business organization. If they fail to perform their tasks, organizations can not meet their goals. More often than not, badly tested software fail to provide required output efficiently. Such software also affect the scalability and performance.

Stiff Competition

Today, users are spoilt for choice, and companies face stiff competition. Thus, it has become imperative for all software to work fast and smoothly and deliver performance. If they do not perform according to the expectation of the users, they will switch to your competitors’ products in no time. 

There are a number of things that can help us understand the importance of SoftwareTesting for businesses. Some of them are given below:

Different kinds of Test

There are different sorts of tests that a software testing company conducts to ensure the required performance and desired results. Some of the tests are Load Test, Failover Test, Reliability Test, Stress Test, Targeted Infrastructure Test, Baseline Test, Network Sensitivity Test, Rendezvous Test, Volume Test, and Result Test. Thus, the product is evaluated on various parameters during software testing to ensure better performance.

Advantages of the Software Testing

Software Testing plays a vital role in adding more value by offering the highest quality product to the customers. It helps build your brand image and reputation. Providing high-quality products makes your customers happy. 

You can also escape several unpleasant experiences, thanks to QA & testing. If your customer is not satisfied with the product quality, you might have to take that product back. This whole process not only costs you time and money, but a part of your reputation is also gone.

Thus, software testing services are very important as they help you please and satisfy your customers. Moreover, they are also useful for reducing cost, increasing sales, improving user experience, and optimizing the business.

Why Mobility Testing is Imperative?

There was a time when the phone was a mere device that was kept in one corner of the room and had to ring in order to catch our attention. In fact in the initial days the computer was a device that was hardly used by a few. Now, they have become the basic necessities of life. They are no longer mere devices – they have become an extension of how we are – they are the windows to the virtual world. They have practically changed the way we think, work, behave, learn and even exist.

Mobile technology is here to stay and will change the future of the world as we know it. And we already know it. Let us not state what and how smart phones have become an integral part of our lives. Rather let us concentrate on Mobility Testing Solutions.

Types of Mobile Testing:

We can safely say that mobile testing can be categorized into 2 broad types.

#1 Hardware testing:

In this testing we are talking about internal processors, internal hardware, screen sizes, resolution, space or memory, camera, radio, Bluetooth, WIFI – in short everything related to the Smart Phone industry.

#2 Software or Application testing:

The diverse applications that you sue in your smart phone needs to be tested before they are launched in the market. And it is here that application testing or software testing makes its entry. There are certain aspects that you need to keep in mind here:

Significance of Mobile Application Testing

Mobility testing applications on mobile devices is more challenging than regular desktop testing. The significance and importance of Mobility Testing is huge. Let us go through a few of the reasons why mobile testing is a challenging affair:

• The market is full of diverse range of mobile devices with different screen sizes and hardware configurations which makes it difficult to test the apps. One has to test them in different OS before launching them.

• The configurations of each smart phone are different from the other.

• One has to deal with diverse and opposite operating software’s like Android, Symbian, Windows, Blackberry and iOS.

• Even the mobile network operators are different for GSM and CDMA versions.

• Frequent updates make it vital to check the apps at regular intervals in order to ensure that the application functionality is not impacted.

In the long run it becomes imperative to offer Mobility Testing Solutions so that there is no bug in the product. The presence of bugs can result in monetary loss, huge legal battles with the brand image getting affected in the long run. Hence, one cannot overlook the importance and significance of this type of testing.

There are many service providers out there in the market that offer this service. TechArcis is one of the leading testing solutions providers. When it comes to quality control and quality assurance they come second to none. No matter whatever your testing queries are, just drop us a mail or give us a call. Our experts are there to help you out anytime.

Why your mobile app testing never turns out the way you want? Why?

Why your mobile app testing never turns out the way you want? Why? Challenges, and plenty of them. Some have to do with the way testing is carried out, while others are a result of superficial factors like new devices, market competition etc. Let's analyze some of these challenges, which result in the failure of companies on the mobile platform.

Read More: Why your mobile app testing ISN’T working the way you want?