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Two Trends Shaping The Future of Mobile Test

By Marcus Merrell, VP of Technology Strategy, and Nikolay Advolodkin, Senior Solutions Architect, Sauce Labs

While talks of pandemic-induced remote working solutions have long passed, what remains is a workforce that is still overwhelmingly remote-first or hybrid-first-meaning the industry must continue evolving to meet the needs of this workforce and organizations must adopt modern technology that was designed to meet these specific needs.

Simultaneously, just as organizations must implement tooling that helps their teams adapt to a remote-first world, consumers are increasingly relying more on their mobile devices to complete everyday tasks, from email to mobile banking to social media and beyond. Companies must prioritize their customer's digital experience because in today's world, a brand's reputation is synonymous with the digital experience it provides-meaning a buggy product will result in zero brand faith and a hit to your bottom line. This impact applies to mobile, too. In fact, according to a recent data study, 20% of users will abandon a brand after encountering even one error on a mobile app.

In prioritizing a better mobile experience, IT teams, including developers and managers, should proactively recognize where testing and diagnosis of issues are most critical to protect brand trust from potential damage. To do that, they need tailored solutions that alleviate challenges, accelerate the testing process and achieve better mobile app development. By examining the trends that are shaping the future of mobile test and implementing the right technology, these teams are better prepared to keep pace and meet customer expectations.

Trend 1: Improving Device Management with Cloud-based Device Management

Mobile app usage is now the consumer default-meaning developer teams need to continuously and conveniently have access to devices for testing mobile software on real and virtual devices. Further, the industry continues to see shorter device lifespans and consumers trending toward keeping their devices for shorter intervals than ever before.

With this in mind, developers need to have instantaneous access to a bevy of new, expensive devices as soon as they're available and a diverse set of operating systems in perpetuity. However, many remote-first organizations are still relying on an outdated approach, requiring teams to use physical, on-premise devices for mobile app testing. This often leads to a host of increased business risks that people weren't considering in a pre-pandemic world, such as increased costs and operational burdens, security and compliance risks, slower development velocity and release speed, and increased application risk.

Fortunately, there are quicker, better solutions that can streamline this process through an extensive virtual suite that lets developers test across various devices without ever leaving their browser--a flexible, modern approach that makes more sense for today's remote work environments and allows DevOps teams to test remotely without the cost, hassle, or risk of maintaining physical devices or device carts on premises.

As the industry continues to evolve, more companies are likely to adopt technology that offers a solution for device testing at faster rates, especially in adapting to today's hybrid-first and remote-first workforce. All of which allows your DevOps teams to take advantage of virtual, cloud-based mobile app testing, helping them realizing business-critical benefits, such as:

• Test anywhere, anytime: Your teams can be centrally located, spread out globally, or working from home-and they'll always have access to the devices they need to ensure a quality release.

• Decrease hidden risk: Companies no longer need to worry about stolen competitive data due to lost, misplaced, or stolen devices. Everything you need to test across multiple devices is all secured in this virtual environment.

• Scale operations easier: A cloud-based testing platform is easily scalable to support both manual and automated testers while also giving developers access to clean devices and OS combinations, at their fingertips.

• Increase team productivity: With everything you need for mobile app testing all in one place, development and quality assurance (QA) teams have the ability to share test results easier and resolve application issues faster. Minutes spent testing on mobile devices are minutes the development team could spend improving your product and customer experience.

• Expand device coverage: A virtual testing approach offers your teams the ability to test a broader mix of devices. Test your mobile apps across a wide range of devices, from Android to Apple and beyond.

• Eliminate maintenance concerns: Unlike with on-premise device testing, there's no maintenance or updates required because the work's already been done for you.
  

Trend 2: Enhancing Mobile App Development through a DevOps Test Toolchain

Companies are constantly developing software and delivering hundreds-sometimes even thousands-of releases every year in an effort to meet customer's expectations for constant value delivery. To accommodate these demands for quality at speed, release velocity is also increasing for highly competitive markets that are powered by digital experiences.

As developers, engineers and QA professionals increasingly prioritize mobile experiences, IT teams need to be laser-focused on developing quality mobile apps and features while also resolving app quality issues across the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Teams must work to prevent test from becoming the bottleneck that slows down the entire SDLC. Further, as mobile development and testing continues to become more challenging than ever, it's important to create a specific mobile development strategy that prioritizes shifting testing left to find more issues earlier is essential-while also, shifting right to develop effective monitoring of unforeseen production issues. With this strategy in mind, your IT team should employ a DevOps Test Toolchain (DevOTT) to facilitate a better developer experience while also reducing risk and increasing return on investment.

With DevOTT for mobile app development, DevOps teams are empowered to achieve quality at speed and create the continuous feedback loop necessary to manage quality risk. All of which happens by providing unique benefits at each stage, from build to test to debug to deploy to finally, operate. What's more, this toolchain can help teams achieve the following:

• Identify and harness quality signals throughout the software lifecycle

• Inform and drive continuous improvements for quality and velocity

• Deliver the best possible customer experience
  

As consumers, we rely on digital experiences everyday, and we expect them to be flawless. Whether we realize it or not, the world relies on code to make those experiences possible. With modern tooling, IT teams must adapt to work more efficiently and productively in a remote workplace-improving device management with DIY testing and implementing a DevOTT to improve mobile app development.

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