Everything SQA

20 iPad App Testers Essentials

By now, everyone has either seen or heard about the adorable two year old, who’s hands naturally, near flawlessly discovered the wonders of the iPad. If you haven’t then take a moment and enjoy.

Since Apple is bringing us closer to what has been on the books for a long time now, it is finally dropping us firmly into the realm of gestural interfaces.  iPhone gave us a peek of things to come, and the iPad makes it more tangible.  So to better prepare for what is turning out to be a nice niche, here’s a list of some things to prep your test arsenal.

Tools for Web and Platform

1.    Selenium
For those Jedi Testers out there, you already know that Safari can be tested with Selenium RC. For those of you who didn’t know, it’s time to get your hands dirty and join the cross browser test revolution.

2.    Watir
Yep. This works with Safari too.

3.    Safari
Even if you don’t have a test lab with a couple of Macs on standby, you can integrate this browser onto your windows platform

4.    EggPlant
If you do have a Mac heavy test lab (or you have the privilege to visit Apple’s Third Party Test Labs), you can add this automation tool to run through scheduled, repeatable user transactions. Take a look.

5.    Alkaline
From Litmus, Alkaline is a free support tool for cross-browser verification. Litmus is a pay-to-play service (like Gomez) and it is primarily for non-Window platform users.  More info on Litmus under the Resources and Services listing.

6.    FrogLogic’s Squish for Mac
For testing the native UI application on the Mac, Squish provides a comprehensive test bed that can work on the functional level, as well as at the unit test level. Designed to work well with Cocoa frameworks and other Mac OS complexities, this is recommended for the platform test guru.

7.    Atlassian’s Jira
For tracking and defect management, and because it can be customized to support imports of data from any of the automated tools is this list.

Test Case Conditions

8.    File Management
Currently, iPad does not have strong support for managing file and folder storage. Under this condition, user acceptance and functional tests can be created to verify seamless, behind-the-scenes management of this flaw, or add Bento at the back-end. To bad theres no multi-tasking (yet).

9.    Stability Issues
The iPad is still ripe, and may have some application crashes from time to time. Most of the time, hardware limitations are at the root of these issues, but to fair – some applications like to stretch the boundaries of what they can actually do. Add some boundary test cases to your suite and see how far you can go. And if you want more on stability issues, take a look at how the iPad 3G handles WI-FI connectivity issues.

10.    Cross Platform Migration
A lot of application vendors are just reusing their iPhone app on the iPad and some of these applications are doing just fine, but some are not. Confirm this capability, not only from the functional side, but from the performance side as well.

11.    Readability
How does your app read on the screen? Probably well. Now try it outdoors, under direct sunlight. How does it work now?

12.    Hardware Add-On’s
Does your app require USB support, or SD cards? These added hardware needs are great when they are on the iPad. Does your app fail if these dependencies are not met? It’s worth a test case, or two to check. 

13.    Data Recovery
iPads have a sleep mode, like most laptops and desktops. How well does your application recover after it starts up from Sleep Mode? Does it pick up where it left off, or does it require a defibrillator to jump start it’s way back to life?

Documentation

14.    iPad Programming Guide
For a detailed technical review of what sits at the core of iPad, take the time to peruse through this guide for a heads up on what you intend to test.

15.    iPad Human Interface Guidelines
The user experience is defined here to help testers identify some the aesthetic of the interface that can be developed. Become the expert.

16.    Join the iPhone Developer Program
If you haven’t yet, then perhaps your company has joined, and has access to the bevy of support tools offered ( from simulator to performance metric tools, and more ).

17.    iPad Tech Specs
Take a moment to review the brief details of the hardware you want to test, and broaden your knowledge of the iPad’s performance capabilities and limitations.

Resources and Services

18.    Sauce Labs
As a Selenium supporter, here is the cross-browser SaaS that will allow you to drop your scripts in the cloud and instantly confirm usability and functionality across a collection of browsers. SauceLabs raises the bar on making Selenium easier to integrate into the continuous stream of development.

If you have the time, enjoy some of the highlights from their Meetup here.

19.    Gomez
Compuware has refined Gomez over the years, and focused its sights on performance test goodies, as well as cross browser verification. For those who need web performance management and support for load testing, Gomez is highly recommended. Keep in mind that as you broaden the hardware platform for your web based application, performance test needs begin to look more and more appealing. Your iPad users will thank you.

20.    Litmus
For Mac developers, here is the alternative to Gomez which allows test engineers and developers to verify interface compatibility issues across multiple browsers. Minus the performance test support, Litmus offers other support services like Spam Analysis and Email testing.

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