The Importance of E2E for Every Mobile Product

The Importance of E2E for Every Mobile Product

Testing is one of the most important components of the modern application development lifecycle. This is because using different test cases the developers can ensure that all the individual components of a complex application is working perfectly. This in turn will help to ensure that they can provide the best end user experience and maintain the reputation of the brand.  End to End testing can be done both manually or by executing automation testing scripts.

During the early years of Internet, desktop was the only way to access applications. However, after the introduction of smartphones, users have started to transition to this device due to its portability. Current statistics show that more than 50% of the Internet traffic is consumed by mobile users. So, it is very important for the app developers to ensure that the application is accessible on mobile devices as well. E2E testing is a unique test case that helps to ensure the best user experience in an application. 

In this article we are going to discuss everything that you need to know about end-to-end testing. We will also discuss some of the major ways to justify the importance of end-to-end testing for a mobile product. 

The Complexities of Mobile App Development

Smartphones started to arrive in the market at around 2010. However, with the passage of time, the demands of the users began to rise, and the diversity of the devices began to rise as well. A recent statistic shows that only in the Android platform, more than a thousand devices appear in the market every year. The total number of devices will be much higher considering that there are other popular platforms like Windows and iOS. Each of these devices will be different from each other in terms of screen size, processor, display resolution and many other parameters. 

So, it is impossible to generalize the mobile app testing process. Moreover, it is also very risky to release a flakey app after only testing it on emulators and simulators. The best solution to this problem is the use of cloud platforms. We will learn more about these platforms in the later part of this article. 

The Basics of End-to-End Testing

In simple terms, end-to-end testing is the process of testing the functioning of the app from the beginning to the end. This process also verifies the integration of the app with other third-party interfaces. This means it will verify whether that the app remains stable when the user introduces third party apps in it. It resembles a complete production scenario by testing the functioning of the app on multiple grounds like dependencies, data integrations, interfaces, databases and the communication of the app with other apps. It also checks the data processing abilities from other upstream and downstream sources. This is where it gets the name end-to-end. This is also the reason why End-to-End Testing is often known as chain testing. 

Role of Cloud Platforms in E2E Testing

Due to the diversity of the mobile platform, it is almost impossible for an application development company to maintain a physical device testing bench. Moreover, it is a very expensive process to not only maintain the mobile test bench but also keep it updated. To cope up with these difficulty developers often tend to restrict the test cases on only emulators and simulators. However, it is a very faulty practice as emulators and simulators cannot provide accuracy similar to real devices. This is because they fail to simulate some of the real-world scenarios including broken display, low battery and user interaction errors. So, the best way to solve this issue is to use cloud platforms in the application development lifecycle.

Using cloud platforms, the developers can access hundreds of real devices that are present on cloud servers. Cloud platforms allow the developers to initiate the test cases from anywhere in the world. To access all of these services the developers simply have to pay a minimum license fee. We can further improve our knowledge of cloud platforms by using LambdaTest as a reference: 

Lambdatest is a cloud integrated secure platform to test the modern web and mobile applications across different browsers, devices and OS combinations. For new application developers, cross browser compatibility is the process of ensuring that web applications do not display drop in performance due to variations in operating system, device specifications or the browser version.

 It also supports automated testing with different frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Espresso and XCUITest. This platform also improves the efficiency of the test cases by introducing parallel testing. Using parallel test cases, the developers can execute different testing configurations at the same time. This platform generates highly accurate test results by combining multiple reports from simulators, emulators and hundreds of real devices. 

Automating E2E Test Cases

Automation testing is becoming one of the rising trends in the application development market. To make it simple, it is the process of automatically executing the test cases with the help of predetermined automated test scripts. Using this process, the developers can conduct the repetitive test cases without any form of human involvement. Moreover, a huge portion of the automated test script can be stored and reused in future development projects as well. Currently there are various platforms that help the developers to perform automation testing on their applications. 

End to end test cases is often repetitive as they verify certain parameters that are usually similar in almost all applications. Therefore, it can be a great choice to introduce automation testing in this process. However, the developers must remember that the initial charges for introducing automation testing are quite high. So, it is very important to consider the business perspective of a company before proceeding with this transition. The developers can also use various platforms like LambdaTest to simplify the process of automation testing. 

It is also very important to remember that there are certain test cases that are simply impossible to conduct without a human intervention. The best example to justify this claim is the process of exploratory testing. Exploratory test cases often find out errors in an application that are usually overlooked by automated test cases. So, these testing processes highly depend on the knowledge and expertise of a human developer. 

Importance of E2E Testing in Mobile App Development

Now that we’re finished discussing the basics of End-to-End Testing and mobile application development process, it is time to understand how these two cases can benefit the development system when combined together. Let us take a quick look at the importance of introducing End-to-End Testing in mobile application development:

  • Testing From the perspective of a User

While performing End-to-End Testing of a mobile application, the developers evaluate the app from the perspective of a normal user. This process helps them to verify some of the features that are highly useful in a real-world scenario. It also helps to ensure that the application has the capability to stand up to the expectations of a normal user. These are some of the important factors to ensure a proper brand image for a company. Evaluating an application from a user’s perspective also helps to detect errors that cannot be found from typical unit test cases. 

  • Verifying the Workflow of an App

Using End-to-End Testing, the developers can verify the smooth workflow of a mobile application. In simple terms, it helps to ensure that the application has the capability to meet the business perspective of a company. This process is in turn important to ensure that the company can generate returns on their investment using the application.  End to end test cases can also help to analyze the practicality of an application considering the competitive nature of the development industry. The customized results help developers to analyze whether the application is ready to be pushed to the production phase. 

  • Expands the Coverage of the Test cases

Using the typical test cases, the developers can only verify the functioning of all the individual elements present on an application. However, end to end test cases help to understand how the application reacts when all of these elements are combined together. This is a very important feature as in a real-world scenario a user might use the app for multiple functions at a time. Using End-to-End Testing, the developers can also understand how the application reacts when it is exposed to third party dependencies. Thus, you can justify that end-to-end testing has a huge role in improving the testing coverage of a mobile application.

  • Reduces the Errors in the Production Phase

Using End-to-End Testing the developers can detect errors in the application at a very early stage of the development process. Thus, it helps to eliminate the detection of errors during the production phase. Finding errors in an application while production massively delays the final delivery process. This is because in such a scenario, the developers have to roll back to the development stage to perform the debugging processes. So, we can see that end-to-end test cases not only helps to improve the quality of the application but also indirectly helps to quickly release it to the end-users. This process is also useful for applications that go through a frequent updating process. 

The Conclusion

So, we can conclude that E2E testing is one of the most important processes of ensuring that the basic elements of a mobile app are functional. Integration of automation testing and E2E testing is one of the most important trends of the modern app market. However, there are certain things that the developers must remember regarding this trend. Firstly, automation testing can never overshadow the importance of manual test cases. Secondly, other testing processes like visual testing, UI testing and exploratory testing are equally important. The best practice in the application development process is to maintain a balanced testing process consisting of both manual and automated test cases. As a developer, your final goal should be to quickly deliver high-quality applications to your end-users. Lastly, it is very important to choose the correct tool according to your preferences. 

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