Countless days have been spent in learning how to code and you are finally ready. The app development training days for you are over as you have earned your android certification and now you must step out the dojo and introduce to the world the newly acquired skill.
But wait… you’re not the only bug around here grasshopper, there are countless outlaws that are here to block your path and create peril in your journey towards glory. What is to be done?
Yup, these outlaws are the countless bugs that might cause your app to crash or make it act up and ruin your reputation as an app developer. Ok that might be taking it up a notch, it’s not that bad.
The truth is bugs and apps go hand in hand. There is not a single developer in the world who can claim to have created an app without bugs. It’s all part of the learning process.
A good app developer will never compromise on the service or the visual appeal of the app and since you have to take care of both ends and have to literally check each and every drop down menu and button, there are certain things that you might overlook in your process of finishing the app.
So since you don’t know what you might have missed in the development phase, it can be extremely frustrating sifting through all the code and not knowing where exactly you went wrong that the app is not exactly working the way you imagined it to be.
Not to worry since there are some ways that can help you test your app for bugs before you launch it out for the world to use and leave nasty reviews and ratings.
Test It Yourself
Every android development tutorial will always urge you to test your app. Since you are the person who created the app and will be a lot less hard on yourself for making mistakes, naturally you should be the first person to test it out. Now this is one of the most fundamental steps you can take to put the finishing touches on your masterpiece. You are not just looking at it from a developer’s point of view, but from the users as well.
Some may argue that a developer will always have a user’s point of view because they are creating the app for the users themselves. That is not always true. A person who creates something knows how things are connected to one another and knows the required steps that are needed to achieve a task with the product at hand.
When looking at it from a user’s point of view, you can’t just look at the steps taken to complete the task, you have to look at how you can change the product so it may be easier for the user to complete the task without getting confused. This is where the judgment of the developer may get clouded because what’s easy for them may be a Rubik’s cube level puzzle for the other. Ok still taking it up a notch but you get the point.
There are several steps that you can follow to successfully test your own app for bugs:
- Prepare functional tests which give stress on the most crucial aspects of your app to make sure that the app serves its basic purpose.
- Perform tests on different devices to see if the bug may be related to the type of device being used. This will also indicate if your app is taking up too much ram on lower level devices.
- Repeat tests and compare the previously collected data with the current one. This will also increase your chances of finding other bugs that might have not occurred previously.
- Research about similar apps to see if their bugs can occur in your own app. Try to expose your app to the same conditions those apps did such as different devices and previously used android versions which may still be used by some devices.
Test your app by being as objective as you can and make it as easy and accessible for the user as you can.
Beta Test
Beta testing is the next step. Every successful app in the world today had their beta versions tested by professional testers. Why do you need professional testers you ask? Well that’s because they don’t just test the product for kicks, these people are paid to identify each and every bug that they can find and report them to the developer.
Beta testing is one of the best ways to catch on to early bugs before launching the app. Good beta testers will always give a very detailed feedback about the app and log each error in a systematic way. And don’t hate the testers for hating on your app. It’s their job to critique it so that others don’t come guns blazing after a bad experience with your app.
No matter how much app development training you might have had, you will be surprised to find that testing for bugs simply comes down to the good old practical method of trial and error and professional beta testers.
Users have also developed different apps that can help you locate bugs in your app, but then again, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.