A Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Mobile App Performance Testing.pdf

A Complete Step-by-Step Guide to
Mobile App Performance Testing
In today’s typical mobile-driven world, delivering an app that performs
smoothly under all conditions is critical. With users expecting fast,
reliable, and intuitive experiences, even a minor lag or crash can
cause unnecessary frustration and app abandonment.
That’s where mobile performance testing makes a difference.
But before we dive into that, you should know what a mobile
application is.
Mobile application software is designed to run on mobile devices like
smartphones and tablets, providing users with similar services

accessed on PCs. Today, technology is above everything, and mobile
applications have surpassed even desktop applications in popularity.
Mobile application performance testing, however, differs from web
application performance testing. It ensures your app meets high user
standards by evaluating its stability, speed, and responsiveness
across different devices and networks.
For example, when laptops and desktops access web applications,
poor network quality, packet loss, or latency can cause minor
disruptions.
In terms of mobile applications, every factor — from network quality
and packet loss to device type, bandwidth, and latency — must be
meticulously evaluated.
Below are different types of mobile applications:
● Browser-based applications
● Native applications
● Hybrid applications
What is Mobile App Performance Testing?
We live in the DevOps era, where rapid development and deployment
are critical objectives for most organizations. Automation testing tools
significantly accelerate deployment, and performance testing is
essential to measure an app’s capabilities in varied environments.
Mobile app performance testing evaluates an app’s performance
under different conditions, such as high traffic loads, to ensure a
seamless user experience.

Why is Mobile App Performance Testing
necessary?
1. User retention and satisfaction
Mobile users will likely abandon an app that crashes frequently or
responds slowly. Performance testing ensures your app meets speed
and stability standards, improving user satisfaction and retention.
2. Scalability and load handling
Load testing is crucial to checking the functioning of any application.
The testers increase the number of virtual users for a certain period to
determine the exact load threshold of the application. This process is
also known as endurance/volume testing.
Load testing clarifies your system’s capacity by handling a certain
number of users at a time. It also determines the application’s
behavior during traffic from different geolocations. Load testing is
essential to keeping your application on point and should be
integrated continuously.
3. Device and network compatibility
Mobile apps run on various devices and connect via diverse network
conditions. Performance testing checks the app’s responsiveness and
stability across different devices, OS versions, and network speeds,
ensuring consistency in user experience.
4. Resource optimization
Performance testing reveals how much battery, memory, and
processing power the app consumes. This is crucial for optimizing app
performance on mobile devices where resource constraints like
battery life can impact the user experience.

Parameters for Mobile App Performance Testing
Mobile app performance testing is measured based on the following
parameters:
1. Device performance
● Tracks app startup time, battery usage, and memory
consumption
● Measures app performance on various software and hardware
configurations
● Checks the app’s interaction with background applications to
identify potential glitches
2. Server/API performance
● Evaluates data transfer speeds to and from the server
● Analyzes API calls and their impact on app performance
3. Network performance
● Studies latency, speed, and packet loss under varying network
conditions
● Checks packet loss to ensure data integrity
Procedure for Mobile Application Performance
Testing
I. Line up test intent and business requirements
It’s crucial to determine the business objectives before executing
performance testing of mobile applications. When the objectives are
clear, it becomes easier to position the application as intended. Once
defined, testers prioritize assessing the application’s functions.

II. Recognize Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Setting a benchmark is the second crucial step, indicating whether
your testing was successful or not. For mobile performance testing
tools, below are the KPIs that must be considered:
● Rate of error
● Highest response time
● Average response time
● Maximum number of requests
● The highest and average number of active users per device and
operating system
Outlined scenarios:
Testers often fail because they do not prioritize test cases or
pre-select critical areas to evaluate the application’s performance. To
avoid this, outline various packet scenarios essential for achieving the
best and most reliable performance.
III. Imitate a live testing environment
A live testing environment is necessary to understand the application’s
user experience. System emulators simulate the operating system’s
essential frameworks, providing testers with a similar display and feel
of the interface.
IV. Align the testing perspective with the
comprehensive development process
Testing needs to align with an organization’s overall development
structure. Continuous integration functions are essential for monitoring
regular bug reports and regression tests, allowing efficient
communication, quick decision-making, and cooperation among all
involved parties.

V. Track network lags, latency, and bandwidth
Mobile devices connect to the internet via third-party carriers, causing
latency and bandwidth to fluctuate over time and across different
devices. Therefore, considering network variances is critical when
optimizing the application’s performance to deliver a flawless user
experience.
Key Mobile App Performance Testing Tools
1. TestGrid
TestGrid is an AI-powered end-to-end testing platform. One of its core
capabilities is that it allows you to conduct mobile performance testing
using the TestOS tool. You can use real mobile devices — from
various Samsung models to different iPhone versions — to run tests
and monitor the results.
The platform is invaluable for spotting vulnerabilities and determining
what needs to be done to make the app more scalable. Want repeated
execution of tests with high precision? TestGrid allows that, preventing
errors in each release and lowering your mean-time-to-resolution
(MTTR).
Moreover, TestGrid integrates seamlessly with almost all leading
continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. You can create
and manage tests by recording your actions and converting them into
a script.
2. Firebase Performance Monitoring
Firebase Performance Monitoring is a service that helps you
understand how well your Apple, Android, and web apps perform. It

collects performance data from the app using the Performance
Monitoring SDK and then reviews and analyzes it in the Firebase
console.
You can capture the app’s performance in specific situations, like
loading a new screen or displaying a new interactive feature.
3. New Relic Mobile
New Relic Mobile provides deeper visibility into the performance and
crash troubleshooting of your Android, iOS, or hybrid mobile apps. Get
complete app visibility — from backend APIs to frontend devices.
Easily ingest and search any volume of on-prem and cloud data and
segment it how you want. You can see and manage all your errors
from a single inbox.
4. Apache JMeter
Apache JMeter is an open-source Java application for load testing
functional behavior and measuring performance.
Although originally designed for web apps, Apache JMeter has since
expanded to other test functions, including mobile. It can simulate
multiple users sending requests to a target server and analyze
metrics, such as latency and throughput, across static and dynamic
resources.
5. LoadRunner
OpenText’s LoadRunner is a performance testing tool that can
simulate thousands of users and record and analyze the performance
of crucial application components under load. It offers several

protocols for mobile app testing, such as HTTP/HTTPS and
WebSocket, and can capture network traffic from mobile devices.
6. Digital.ai
Digital.ai is a scalable web and mobile app testing solution. It provides
comprehensive reports with deep network and test data, enabling
rapid root cause analysis. It also monitors device vitals on real
devices, such as CPU, memory, battery, and more. It can also quickly
identify regressions and performance degradations by comparing tests
over time.
7. Apptim
Powered by GenAI, Apptim promises to improve mobile app
performance analysis. Existing manual or automated tests using
in-house devices or cloud device farms can be used to find
performance issues before going live.
You can also find out how much time users are spending on specific
actions. Apptim integrates client-side performance tests for common
use cases in your app into a CI/CD pipeline and sets up alerts for key
performance indicators.
Limitations of Mobile App Performance Testing
Performance testing on mobile apps is more challenging than PC
software testing because of its wide variety of devices, vast users, and
different device-specific features. Here’s a list of the primary issues
that arise during mobile app performance testing:

1. Device variation
Numerous device versions exist on the market, which creates
challenges since the application must perform efficiently on all of
them. Conducting testing becomes burdensome when gathering
phones and devices from various users, especially given the limited
access to a wide range of mobile devices.
2. Various device features
It is challenging to emulate all the features of different mobile devices
using online tools. Device features like GPS, camera, microphone,
embedded memory, operating system, processor, and sensors vary
from one phone to another.
This creates immense complexities; hence, understanding that the
performance testing results for mobile apps are optimum gets a little
costlier and time-consuming.
3. High battery usage
Battery usage testing is a critical aspect of mobile app testing. In
recent years, this has become a significant challenge due to the rise in
battery-draining apps. Reducing battery drain is essential for
delivering a good user experience.
4. Multiple UI variations
Page layouts and system fonts differ across operating systems. An
application’s publishing process can be delayed or even halted if
Google Play or App Store guidelines are not followed or met.

Conclusion
Every day, the world transforms digitally; many mobile applications are
available in app stores. Due to their easy-to-use features, users can
effortlessly switch from one application to another.
However, building a quality mobile app is not easy. Regular mobile
app performance testing is necessary to ensure the application is
efficient and delivers the expected results.
Source: This article was originally published at testgrid.io.

A Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Mobile App Performance Testing.pdf

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A Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Mobile App Performance Testing.pdf