Coverage: how to cover an ever-expanding universe of device complexity
In today’s current climate, we are more remote than ever. Whether separated by a few blocks or a few countries, the feeling of distance is now more prevalent than ever in our day-to-day lives.
Virtuality is our new normality. What was once a cheeky conversation at the coffee machine is now a virtual mugs up over one of your daily Zoom calls.
So, what is it that is keeping this fragmented world together?
Technology.
Regardless of device type - be it your phone, your tablet, your desktop or your laptop, that device is your go-to for work and leisure.
Whether you’re online shopping, paying your bills or beating your high score on Candy Crush, you're relying on your device. But what happens if your user experience is poor?
Well, if you’re like most people, you’re going to just delete the app outright. In fact, one third of all users delete a buggy app. Remember this, it’s important.
Between the Apple iOS store and Google Play, there are over 4.83 million apps available. So if you’re providing a sub par experience, aren’t your users just going to simply move on to the next app?
The answer is likely yes.
So when it comes to your app, how do you stay ahead of the competition? Ensuring it’s highly functional and usable probably comes to mind. But there’s an obstacle that comes as a result of the global, fragmented world we live in.
And it’s this number: 35,000.
That’s the number of different device networks and versions out in the world today. That’s a massive figure in terms of device complexity. Plus this is likely to grow as time marches on.
But what happens when you combine that with the different environments each device occupies? Delivering a bug-free, quality experience in one region of the world is highly different to that of another.
Oh wait, there’s more.
Take that figure, multiplied by the number of regions within countries and countries within continents and then add to it all of the different integrations and features that an app might provide.
Integrations + networks + device complexity + globality = one massive matrix.
Through this lens, what seemed like a routine app release in a new market now looks like a massive beast that your QA team must tackle. And unfortunately, you can’t afford to lose out on delivering a poor experience, as your bottom line will be directly impacted.
So how can you match these testing variables with your testing requirements and resources? The thought of hiring internally sounds like the right option at first, but the time and financial scope of such an undertaking is proving that approach difficult.
“Our iOS and Android app ratings used to suffer as we couldn’t internally replicate bugs. We’ve increased our test coverage which has found bugs we couldn’t replicate in-house.”
- G2 Crowd Review
So what are the key takeaways to resolve issues in scalability amidst so much complexity? Here are 4 things you should be consistently checking:
- Check your “complexity” coverage in terms of location, networks and device type
- Check bug reports across OS, device and manufacturer
- Check in on your team’s release confidence
- Compare cost and ease of managing an internal resource vs a QA partnership
Global App Testing uses a crowd of 50,000 testers across 189 countries. By partnering with us, you can tap into the skills of our highly vetted team to help you deliver a quality experience in every corner of the world. To learn more about how we provide your teams with the resources and flexibility they need, get in touch with a member of our team today.