Unlocking Rapid Results: Shortening Mobile App Testing Timelines

Learn how to modernize and accelerate your mobile app testing time from days to hours with three strategic updates

UPDATED: March 01, 2025 - POSTED: September 05, 2023

In the ever-evolving realm of mobile app testing, time is a precious resource. The ability to launch your app faster can make all the difference in staying competitive and meeting the needs of your users. Yet, the rigorous process of mobile app testing often extends timelines. However, in this article, we unveil the keys to rapid results in app testing. “Unlocking Rapid Results: Shortening Mobile App Testing Timelines” explores four powerful strategies that can dramatically reduce testing time without compromising quality. By embracing these innovative approaches, you can transition your mobile app testing time from days to several hours.

Bottlenecks in the Mobile App Testing Process

Let’s start with a high-level overview of what exactly takes up time during the mobile app testing process.

• Managing Test Devices
  Managing test devices includes purchasing, setting up and maintaining multiple Android and iOS devices. The exact number of devices varies significantly per use case but can be as high as hundreds of devices. Device fragmentation is especially notable for Android devices, with 24,000 unique android devices created across 1,300 brands. Time spent on device lab maintenance may also include finding physical space for the device lab and hiring specialty lab manager positions. This time cost also represents an enormous budget cost concurrently.

• Manual Coding and Testing
  Creating, running, and maintaining the scripts needed for testing is another common time bottleneck in mobile app testing. Whether you’re hiring a specialist to build out test code from scratch or bringing on a new person into a performing system, you’ll often find a high learning curve. Having individuals test manually also leads to what is typically the second greatest time bottleneck in mobile app testing.

• Managing Reporting Tools
  Despite many advances, reporting tools for mobile app testing remain disparate and unconnected. Interpreting both functional and non-functional reports can involve 8 – 10 tools and rely entirely on individual work spent understanding and relating results.

While the time expenditures above are often accepted as simply part of the testing process, there are more efficient strategies available. By transitioning to these time saving strategies, your team will be able to fix bugs more quickly, roll out more features, and ultimately create a superior user experience.

Reducing Mobile App Testing Time

• Managing Test Devices: Employ a Cloud Device Lab
  Employing a cloud device lab service allows for maximum real-world coverage at a fraction of the time. It also bypasses initial costs entirely, maximizing your budget. By finding a service that offers easy-to-access devices you’ll have exactly the hardware you need, when you need it and nothing more.

• Manual Coding: Transition to a Visual Editor
  Abstraction is the natural evolution in many technological updates, including the mobile app testing industry. Just as laptop users no longer access code directly when they use their devices, mobile app testers are now able to use drag-and-drop visual editors instead of direct code to create test automations. This modern approach to testing doesn’t require a specialist and can run quickly and easily at any scale.

• Managing Reporting Tools: Find a Product with Streamlined Reporting
  Finally, choosing a service with streamlined reporting tools saves the time once spent on test result aggregation and interpretation. By finding a tool that offers both functional and non-functional results simultaneously you’ll be further cutting down on unnecessary time spent on the overall app testing process.

In Summary

• Purchasing and maintaining devices takes huge amounts of time and expertise.
• Consider outsourcing this work to a cloud device lab service.
• Creating and maintaining code, much like devices, is very time consuming and expertise driven.
• Consider transitioning to visual editors instead of code for faster a faster learning curve and greater accessibility.
• Understanding multiple, unrelated reporting tools takes time away from other testing steps.
• Consider streamlined reporting tools that share functional and non-functional reports simultaneously.

Many companies, including Microsoft, have been utilizing Sofy for the reasons above. Click here to learn about how the Microsoft team used Sofy to reduce time spent on testing mobile apps from 5 days to 4 hours.