Today, there are millions of mobile users around the globe, and one of the dominant mobile operating systems in the market is Android. With this increasing number of Android users and increasing demand for Android apps developers are inclined to build their application for Android first so that they can deliver user-friendly, feature-rich, and bug-free mobile apps that reach a larger number of targeted users in the market.
However, ensuring that the app provides a seamless user experience, relevant features, and flawless functionality across various Android devices, operating system versions, and hardware specifications makes Android automation essential.
Mobile app testing across various platforms, devices, network connections, carriers, and security can be a complex process that takes quite time and resources. A simple bug in a popular application can become the reason for its downfalls. Most users who want fast services may not have the patience to wait for a developer to fix defects in an application when they can easily go to a competitor.
So, to ensure that nothing of this sort happens developers need to follow a proper testing plan followed by efficient, fast, and reliable testing tools and a few best practices for all their apps. This will help developers evaluate the app’s functionality, performance, security, and compatibility with diverse Android configurations. In this article, we will learn about automating Android apps, its benefits, best practices, and tools. Let’s first understand what Android app automation is before we move further.
Android App Automation Testing
Android app automation testing is the process of automating various functionalities of Android apps to improve efficiency, accuracy, and speed. Some of the popular areas to be implemented in Android app automation are the user interface, functional verification, data consistency, and non-functional parameters. It enables developers to test the application for factors such as functionality, performance, quality, features, scalability, security, and accessibility.
Since it entails testing scripts automatically no manual interventions are required once the scripts are written and stored in the suites. Using automation tools and frameworks developers can create and execute scripts that simulate user interactions, such as button tapping, typing characters from the keyboard, and screen navigation to make sure these actions produce the intended results. Furthermore, these tools record every user action and leave feedback with errors and fixes.
Benefits of Automating Android App Testing
Automated Android app testing provides several benefits to testers and developers to ensure that their mobile app provides a seamless user experience across various Android devices. Below are some benefits of choosing automated Android app testing.
Lower cost and time- Android automation testing is more cost-effective as it reduces the need for the human workforce. It identifies the errors at the early stage of development, which helps in lowering the cost associated with them when they are identified at the later stage. It is also time-efficient since developers can write the scripts and run tests. This additionally saves time for other testing activities.
Faster release- A faster release cycle is one of the major goals for developers. Android app automation helps developers run tests continuously and repeatedly, offering quicker feedback on code changes and bug fixes. The quicker developers get the fix the more quickly they can merge it into the production, accelerating the development process.
Accuracy- Automated testing tools provide accurate results. When a system is fed with some algorithm, it will always perform correctly each time or always incorrectly each time (indicating the algorithm’s flaw). But it won’t make any mistake on its own randomly without making any change in the code or algorithm.
Reusability- Automation test scripts can be reused across different app versions; ensuring new code changes don’t reintroduce previously fixed bugs.
Scalability- Smaller applications are easier to test, debug, and maintain manually, as they have a smaller code base. But as an application grows, so does the code base. Automation can be effortlessly used to scale and handle large and complex test suites, making it ideal for apps with extensive functionality.
Comprehensive Coverage- Automation testing can seamlessly perform complex scenarios that are hard to test manually, extensively covering various aspects of the application like UI interactions, functional behavior, and compatibility across devices
and operating system versions for better app functionality.
Improved app security- Automated testing helps in better assessing app vulnerabilities and identifying the bottlenecks. Various automated testing tools run detailed security testing aiming to safeguard sensitive data and prevent unauthorized access.
Best Practices for Automating Android Apps
To work with Android app automation effectively, the developers must follow certain best practices for better results. They are discussed below.
Defining clear testing scope to understand the app-Discussing with the developers the ins and outs of the developed app helps in learning and knowing everything including the pain points, solutions, and the features that it covers. Establishing achievable testing goals by understanding the apps better enables testers to align expectations across teams and write test scripts that identify potential issues.
Leveraging the right testing tools- Android app automation depends largely on the tools used to conduct the testing process. Choosing the wrong tool can waste a significant amount of time in managing the scripts and may take the testing process backward instead of being fruitful. Therefore it is recommended to read and understand the documentation of each testing tool; familiar tools can be put into practice.
Stay updated with the latest trend- Move on with the latest trend. Having an understanding of the latest Android trends and what users like is crucial.
Always start testing with a strategy- Creating a detailed test strategy and planning for testing the app beforehand is crucial to making the maximum out of automation testing. Documenting all the things that the team needs to do and all the things that could go wrong in the process is extremely important to analyze the risks and set the most optimum path for testing.
Use real devices- Real devices are the actual physical devices with the same hardware that the end-user uses. Utilize real Android devices for testing provides the best parameter values for various tests as well as accurately simulates user conditions,
Teams using real devices can configure variations in hardware and network conditions, as well as explore bugs and glitches that might not be found with emulators and simulators. However, testing on real devices can be expensive to use but platforms like LambdaTest real device cloud would be the best way to go as it offers extensive device coverage for comprehensive testing.
Factors to Consider When Choosing an Android Automation Tools
When choosing an automated Android app testing tool, it’s crucial to consider a few factors, which are discussed below.
- Compatibility across platforms and devices- Compatibility is the first aspect to consider. It is whether the tool supports the target platform iOS or Android (including various old and new Android versions) that testers want to run their application on so that they can ensure comprehensive testing and higher test coverage.
- Cost- Cost is another crucial aspect that needs to be considered, especially if testers have budget constraints.
- Test type Support- it is also essential to confirm that the tool supports various testing types that testers want to perform like need, such as functional, performance, security, or usability testing.
- Ease of use in test scripting- Choose a test tool that provides flexible and easy-to-use scripting language support that aligns with the tester’s preferences and skills.
- Customer support- Assess the level of assistance and guidance the tool provides. Make sure that the tool provides proper documentation and adequate technical support to assist users with queries regarding setup instructions, and troubleshooting resources.
Also check that they provide frequent updates to address bug fixes, new feature releases, and upgrades to improve performance. Security-Security and data privacy are other factors to prioritize when choosing a tool. Check that the chosen tool is safe and secure to use by thoroughly checking what security measures it implements to ensure users’ data security and privacy.
- Reporting and analytics- Choose a tool that offers comprehensive reporting and analytics to track progress, identify issues, and monitor app quality.
Overall the choice of an automated Android app testing tool depends on the specific testing requirements. Evaluating these criteria will help testers select a tool that best meets their needs and ensures the quality as well as reliability of the mobile app.
Android App Automation Testing Tool
Below are the top Android app automation testing tools and frameworks to consider.
LambdaTest
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that offers developers and testers solutions for effective automated Android app automation testing at scale on both real and virtual Android devices. The platform allows testers to perform Android app automation testing both in real-time and automated across more than 3000 environments, real mobile devices, and browsers hosted in the cloud, enabling comprehensive testing across various device configurations.
It is a cloud-based test automation platform for Android, iOS, or web-based applications, supporting various automation testing frameworks like Appium, Selenium, and Cucumber to ensure high-quality application performance across Android devices. The platform provides every functionality required for testing and includes support for various testing types like data-driven, regression, API, cross-browser, and parallel at scale.
Automation testing features and capabilities like various APIs, bug tracking systems, test reporting analytics with screenshots and logs, and CI/CD workflow integration capabilities, make LambdaTest fully equipped to run automated Android tests and to enhance test automation workflows specifically for Android app automation testing.
The platform also provides testers with an Android emulator for Mac for enhanced performance outcomes for their Android apps across various iOS devices, streamlining testing on both iOS and cloud-based Android devices.
Appium
Appium is a widely-used open-source automation testing tool known for its flexibility in supporting testing on iOS, Windows, and a wide range of Android operating system versions using the same API, allowing reusability of code across platforms. That means, saving significant time and effort for QA as they can use the same code for iOS and Android.
It is a cross-platform automation tool that provides Appium Grid that easily enables testing multiple devices in parallel. The Appium Inspector provides a unified interface to inspect and interact with elements across both iOS and Android platforms. Despite these, the tool has certain limitations such as lack of detailed reporting and being a bit slow as the tests rely on a remote web driver.
Kobiton
Kobiton is a cloud-based mobile testing platform automation that provides both free and paid versions. It offers access to real devices for testing as well as supports multiple automated testing frameworks for real-time collaboration and testing analytics. Capturing all the actions enables developers to identify and fix issues quickly and efficiently, reducing the overall time and cost of the testing process.
It also supports the automation of actions that manual testing would require including orientation, speaker and camera control, GPS simulations, multi-touch gestures, and many more. Some of its key features are detailed reporting, logs; screen captures video, real-time collaboration, test analytics, and system metrics such as battery, and memory performance.
Espresso
Espresso is an open-source automated testing tool designed for testing Android app user interfaces. This Android testing framework developed by Google is popular for its rapid and reliable test execution.
Developers can write robust, simple, and flexible tests that can be run on various Android versions and devices. It provides user-friendly APIs making it easier to learn and use, helping developers and testers get quick feedback on app performance.
Selendroid
Selendroid is an open-source Android app testing tool that supports testing native and hybrid apps on Android emulators and real devices. Just like Selenium, Selendroid offers playback and recording capabilities. For scaling and parallel testing, Selendroid seamlessly integrates with Selenium Grid.
Additionally, the framework enables developers to create test scripts in multiple programming languages such as Java, Python, and Ruby, and various testing frameworks, making the tool more flexible and easy to use. Selendroid can also be seamlessly integrated with other frameworks like JUnit.
Calabash
Calabash is an open-source mobile testing framework that supports multiple programming languages like Java, Ruby, and .NET for testing native and hybrid apps. The framework provides a rich set of APIs that allow developers to simulate user
actions, such as swipe, rotate, pinch, and tap swipes, and interact with UI
elements in their applications. One significant benefit of this tool is that it is highly customizable and can be integrated with other testing frameworks and tools, including Appium and Selenium
Conclusion
In conclusion, automating Android app testing reduces the possibility of frequent human mistakes in manual testing procedures because it rigidly follows pre-written scripts. These automated test scripts focus on various aspects of the app, including UI testing, functional testing, and performance testing to enhance the quality of the application and explore weak areas in it.
Therefore choosing the proper test automation tool and implementing some best practices will help developers establish consistent and quality applications and improve their performance and usability.
Utilizing specialized tools and frameworks allows developers to test Android apps on various devices and under various situations like low network connectivity, unexpected crashes, and downtime due to large user load or a network failure. Implementing the above best practices will help in identifying and fixing potential errors, glitches, and inconsistencies within the app.
