Software QA FYI - SQAFYI

A Beginner’s Guide to Automated Mobile App

By: Martin Poschenrieder

A step-by-step tutorial for people completely new to mobile development, manual QA testers and automation engineers who are new to mobile.

This is a step-by-step tutorial in mobile app automation software. It is tailored for people new to mobile automation. This tutorial you will teach you how to create and execute your very own automated mobile app testing, even if you have little to no mobile development experience. It has been written in light of the best practices we at testmunk have derived from working with clients introducing automated testing to their organizations.

This tutorial has three sections:

An introduction to automated app testing

A primer on writing your first test

1. Prerequisites

2. Installing the Calabash framework

3. Write your first test

4. Run your first test

An introduction to the tools required for mobile automation

5. Testing on multiple devices

6. Running tests in the cloud

7. Custom step definitions

8. Further resources

Certain steps of this tutorial differ for iOS and Android – make sure you follow the correct process for your app.

This tutorial also frequently refers to sections of the testmunk documentation – directing you when to use this documentation.

Introduction to automated mobile app testing

First, it’s important to understand that mobile apps are made up of elements with specific names and functionalities. An example of such an element is the app’s ‘log in’ button. Once that element is pressed, it will take you to the log in page of the app.

A quick way to get started is to use one of our sample apps, either for Android or iOS, with predefined steps. Here’s an example of how we would write an automated test script for this app:

We write a test that instructs the phone to perform the following steps: type an email address into the “Email” field, type a password into the “Password” field and press the “SIGN IN” button element.

Then we check whether the app has done what’s expected. E.g. ‘Then I should see “Hello World”.’

This basic test fills out the email and password fields, presses log in, and checks whether the desired element has appeared. If “Hello world” does appear, then the test passes and the program moves on to the next test. For anything other than “Hello world”, the test fails.

Android vs. iOS

The process of writing and running an automated test depends on the platform you’re using. From here this tutorial branches into separate steps for Android and iOS.

It might also be the case that you will need a little help from your iOS or Android developer – maybe buy them a coffee.

Full article...


Other Resource

... to read more articles, visit http://sqa.fyicenter.com/art/

A Beginner’s Guide to Automated Mobile App