The significance of regression testing in mobile app development

Regression testing is an important part of testing mobile apps, and most companies that make mobile apps use it to make sure their apps work smoothly and can be used for a long time. In this article, we’ll talk about what regression testing is, what organizations need to consider while performing regression testing, and how organizations can utilize all their distributed devices for mobile app testing from any location, at any time. 

What is regression testing?

Regression testing is a type of mobile app testing that makes sure a change in the program or code doesn't break any of the app's features or functions. App or software regression testing is important when you are launching new features or fixing bugs in your apps. With regression testing, you can make sure that the fixes you've made won't stop your app from working or cause new problems or bugs. Regression testing is a must for the success of your mobile app, and it is just as important as the development process itself.   

Things to consider for regression testing

While doing regression testing, you need to consider the following important things:

1. Mobile devices and OSs used by end users

If you want your app to do well, you need to test it on as many platforms or devices as possible. You may have clients who use a diverse range of devices running on various operating systems, which may increase the level of testing complexity. You may have to design your regression testing plan around those requirements.   

So, before going for regression testing, you need to collect information on what kind of devices and operating systems are being used by your target customers. As a matter of fact, it is best to start with a core user base and gradually extend beyond it. 

2. Consider multiple user conditions

Although your application may have a bundle of unique and useful features, it may still fail or give your users a bad experience. So, to ensure that your app is successful, you must test it under the different conditions in which the app will be used. 

While doing regression testing of your app, you should check it under different network conditions. For example, you may test the performance of your app when other apps are running in the background, or you may evaluate app performance on the basis of users' locations, phone calls, SMS interruptions, and more. 

3. Work on critical application flows

It is critical to analyze the critical application workflows or end user app journey (how end users use your app and the critical app flows through which they go to complete the tasks) while performing regression testing on your apps. Because every user goes through these workflows every time they use your app, it is important that you test your app on these critical journeys to prevent app malfunctioning and ensure smoother task completion.

4. Parallel testing

Parallel testing is a way to save time by testing different versions or parts of an application with the same data on different systems at the same time. Parallel testing is very important in any type of regression testing. It enables you to scale in the cloud to support multiple transactions per day. Also, it can help you save time and money. Enterprises need to check the number of tests that they need to run in parallel and the frameworks that suit them best based on the skill sets of developers, engineers, and manual testers they have available. 

Significance of regression testing

Every time we change the original application code, it creates bugs. That’s why it’s imperative to run tests every time we make a change. It helps identify the bugs and fix them in time. 

Regression testing helps you improve the way the program works and how well it works. It is a crucial step in software development. Some research studies show that regression testing saves up to 60% time in bug fixing and 10%–40% money. 

Enterprises can automate regression testing, so they can identify and fix bugs every time there is a new release. Automation helps reduce the amount of time and effort spent on manual regression testing. 

Plan your regression testing with AstroFarm

Testing mobile apps becomes even more difficult when your customers use different mobile devices such as smartphones, laptops, and tablets based on different operating systems such as iOS, Android, or others. In such cases, you need to test your app on every device and OS that your users use, which makes the process both costly and long.

Also, developers sometimes have trouble running tests in real time because they don't have the right devices, and moving devices from one place to another can be expensive. AstroFarm, a private device farm solution from 42Gears, can help DevOps teams access devices that were previously inaccessible quickly and from anywhere, saving time and money for businesses. It also helps detect bugs and take corrective action in time.

If your company has its own set of devices, then you can easily build your own private device farm using AstroFarm. You can quickly add your devices to AstroFarm, so your developers and testers can use them to run regression and other tests at any time and from anywhere.