Mobile application testing in industrial contexts : an exploratory multiple case-study

Abstract

Recent empirical studies in the area of mobile application testing indicate the need for specific testing techniques and methods for mobile applications. This is due to mobile applications being significantly different than traditional web and desktop applications, particularly in terms of the physical constraints of mobile devices and the very different features of their operating systems. Nonetheless, very few of the existing studies are based on a thorough investigation and understanding of real-world software development teams in an industrial contexts. Therefore, we were motivated to conduct the study reported herein: a multiple case-study approach involving four software development companies in the area of mobile and smartphones application. We aimed to identify testing techniques currently being applied by developers and challenges that they are facing. Our principle results are that many industrial teams seem to lack sufficient knowledge on how to test mobile applications, particularly in the areas of mobile application life-cycle conformance, context-awareness, and integration testing. We also found that there is no formal testing approach or methodology that can facilitate the development team to systematically test a critical mobile application