MY EXPERIENCE REPORT OF MOBILE TESTING WORKSHOP BY AJAY BALAMURUGADAS

It was a pleasant Saturday. The workshop was conducted by Ajay Balamurugudas. He is a cool guy who is an expert in mobile application testing. This workshop was pretty different from other workshop because it was filled with hints and exercises. The first exercise was to brief the details of the device in which we are testing the app on to a developer. I was using a windows phone “Nokia Lumia 520” so, I tapped on setting icon in the Home screen. In the Setting screen I used the “About My Device” option to see the OS version, IMEI number, RAM etc. Ajay asked us a simple question as how to find all the details of the device by just one word? My answer was, we can use the phone name. Ajay’s advice was not to do anything that steals our testing time. He said we can use Flipkart to see the entire specification of the device we are using, he also gave us a list of ideas sometime Flipkart and other e-commerce website provide false details so, he advised us to go directly to the phone manufacture website to see the specification. I also came to know about an interesting website called as IFIXIT.COM which is used to give a teardown view of any mobile.

Key points learnt from the exercise

•  Using website such as "Flipkart" to know the specification.
•  Manufacturer details.
•  Using IFIXIT to get a tear-down view of mobile.
• Get to know about Form Factor which is the general look and shape of the mobile device. There are three form factors:
•      Phone
•      Tablet 
•      Phablet

Exercise 2: Was about getting to know about different terminology used in mobile testing to report bugs. The thing I like the most in this workshop is it start from the basics and provides a step by step foundation to learn about mobile testing. This exercise was about to perform a set a task such as open the camera, restart the phone and to simultaneously write the command to perform the action. During the hint discussion of this exercise Ajay told us about an interesting application called as “App a day” which a free app that give us one paid app a day for free.  Then there was a discussion regarding the key terms used in mobile testing such as Dead-spot, ADB and USBDebugging etc. Ajay explained about each keyword using a WordCloud he created for the terminology.

Key points learnt

• Difference between swipe and flick.
• How to get paid app for free using app a day.
• How to report bugs in app using the right terminology.
• What is word cloud and how to create.

Exercise 3: Was about gathering information about before starting to test from the stockholders or project managers.

This exercise was very interesting few of my question were

• Who are the end users of the product?
• Specification about the application?
• Duration of the project?
• What are main features need to be tester?
• Device compatibility of the application?

Ajay gave us a clear view of what are the Context-Free Question for testing using a mnemonic to remember from Michael Bolton.

Mnemonic: PCM-TRP-DOT-TED-FIAT

P: Permission C: Clients M: Mission

T: Time R: Report T: Thinking

D: Data O: Oracle T: Thinking

T: Testers E: Experts D: Developer

F: Feeling I: Information A: Avoid T: Tools

Ajay explained about few question to ask for each mnemonic and he advised us to watch a video by James Bach called as “Steve McQueen”. I learned how to investigate when a problem occurs from the video.

Key Points learnt:

• Important question to be asked before testing?
• Investigating of a bug?

The next exercises were very cool because we started to test a live app.

Exercise 4: To perform “First Impression test” on a live app. First Impression is the best impression, if the user does not feel good while using the app for the first time then he will not use the app again.

I tested the “BookMyShow” application. Few of my first impression regarding the "BookMyShow" app.

• The app icon did not give any idea as what the app was.
• The Splash screen of the application was not good, since there were no capitalization of characters
• Load time of the application was very less.
• The color contract of the first screen was red and black.
• Features of the first screen was there was search bar and list of cities displayed to select one from them.

Ajay ways of first impression testing was very different, he gave us useful test ideas for first impression test of the app.

• Gather information: To collect all the information required for testing using the Contex free question discussed in previous exercise 
• Feature Map: Feature map is a pictorial mindmap that represent the features of the app we are testing. Creating this will help to track the coverage.
• First Launch Test: Ajay recommended to take a screenshot or video while we launch the app for the first time. Because some bugs occur only the first time we launch the application.
• Delete-able Offences: Sometime the user will delete the application when the app is slow, unable to understand, hangs a lot etc.
• Common Issues: Crashes occurs, color contrast etc.

One of the advice from Ajay was “Do Not Self-censor”. It means do not assume that this might not be a bug.

Key Points Learnt:

• Touring the application to know the features in the application so, that we can get a clarity between a bug and a feature.
• Creating a feature map.
• Important of using a video recorder or to take screenshot while launching  the app for the first time.

The next exercise was related to Testing Models.  To use the testing models and find the bugs in the live application.

• LONG FUN CUP by Dhanasekar S.
• I SLICED UP by Jonathan Kohl.

       Using these model we can get test ideas because these model categories in the form of mnemonics. I tested the FlipKart app based on these model it was cool and I was able to get different test ideas.

The next task was to create a mindmap of the common bugs found in the software. The mindmap created by me is below

Common  Problems Mindmap

Pizza were distributed to everyone. After the lunch workshop commenced again.

The most aviated moment of the workshop Ajay’s demo, a demo of how he tests a live mobile app. He tested the mobile app called as “yoga360”. He was using an interesting tool called as “Mirroring 360”, it simulates the actions he performed in the application to the app in the desktop. But both Mirroring 360 and the mobile device must be connected to the same WIFI network. He did some interruption based test by making a call while purchasing a package in the Yoga360 application and he found a cool bug that interrupts the call. He was simultaneously recording the action he performed using the tool called as “FastStone Capture”.

Key Tools and Techniques learnt:

itools

Itools is a windows application used for IOS operation system, it is used to view the log generated IOS application and also it gives us the crash report when the app crashes.

Android Debug Bridge

Android Debug Bridge is a command line utility that run in windows it can be used to communicate with the emulator or connected android device via command line interface.

Fiddler

Fiddler is web debugging tool,it is available for windows as well as MAC. We can use it to view the network interaction between sever and the mobile application.

Google Chrome Device Mode

It is an option available in developer mode (Ctrl+Shift+I) in Google Chrome we can simulate website view for any mobile device. Network connection can also be emulated such as Normal 2G, Good 3G etc. Orientation of the device can also be changed. One cool thing is there are no mouse or cursor appearance, we will get a feel that we are touching on a touch screen.

Santhosh Tuppad was adding more interesting things to the workshop. Santhosh talked about interesting tools such as  “HttpWatch” and “Charles Proxy” etc.

HttpWatch

HttpWatch is a cool iPhone app  available in two editions basic and the professional. The major use of this app is to watch the HTTP request from the HYBRID app to the server.

Finally there was a good explanation given on what are all the details that has to cover while reporting the bugs. A mindmap was explained to us by Ajay it covered many points that has to be covered while reporting bugs, it was very useful.

These are very very few exercises. You need to witness the workshop and experience it with plethora of exercises. Being present in his workshop is such an awesome experience. Watch out for his next workshop details at http://testmaniac.com/workshop/

Ajay showed his mobile kit, it included iPad, iPhone, mobile stand, “selfie stick”, Damaged USB cables, working USB cables etc.

Last part of the workshop was photo shoot of the certification distribution and wishes from Ajay and Santhosh Tuppad. I thank them very much for giving me the opportunity to attend such as useful and interesting workshop.