Gone are the days when QA teams worked alone and in silos. Today, the way we develop applications requires testers and developers to collaborate closely so they can create applications that are of good quality. How can we connect and ensure that everyone understands each other? That’s where Device clouds come into play – they are strong tools changing the method in which quality assurance teams operate and work together.
Testing applications on the cloud with real devices enhances quality assurance teams’ capabilities and facilitates collaboration with application developers, and ensures the delivery of high-quality applications.
The Challenges of Traditional Testing
Before we explore the mobile testing lab with real devices on cloud, let us identify the challenges and limitations of traditional testing methods.
Limited Device Availability
Testing on many different devices, like phones, tablets and computers, has usually caused a lot of problems. Picture a room filled with many real devices – this needs a lot of space to keep them and also leads to constant troubles with keeping everything working right. Maintaining the latest versions of applications, making sure devices are charged, and fixing problems with equipment can use up a lot of important time and resources during the testing process.
Fragmented Testing Environments
The difficulty goes past just the devices. When you add in how many operating systems and browsers keep increasing, it becomes a very mixed-up situation for trying to test things. Handling many test environments, all having different peculiarities and setups, might take a lot of time and often leads to mistakes.
Maintaining uniformity in these settings turns into an ongoing struggle, which complicates pinpointing the origin of problems that might come up while conducting tests.
Isolation of QA Teams
When there is not enough access to tools and settings, it can cause problems that spread out further than just planning. Quality assurance groups might find themselves cut off from making the application when they cannot test how users will really use the product on different devices.
Not having access to a mobile testing lab with real devices on cloud makes it hard to talk and work with developers, which can cause confusion and overlooked problems. Think about a QA group finding a problem on a device they cannot use – it becomes really tough for them to explain and show the issue to the developers.
These restrictions can cause narrow points in the progress of making things, which may result in waiting times, annoyance and at last there’s a greater chance that errors might go unnoticed and affect the experience of the final users.
Device Clouds to the Rescue
Device clouds provide a very good solution to the usual problems with testing. This is how they help QA teams and change their work methods:
Ubiquitous Device Access
Device clouds offer access to many real devices instantly, including the latest smartphones and some older models. There’s no longer a need for QA teams to search for physical devices – they can test on almost any device required within a single platform.
Streamlined Environment Management
Gone are the old days when we had to handle many testing settings physically in on-premise device labs/setup. Now, device clouds provide environments that are already set up with various operating systems and browsers, making the test setup fast, simple and intuitive.
Scalability and Flexibility
Cloud testing for devices can easily increase or decrease its scale. Device clouds provide the flexibility to adjust testing needs on the go. These features translate to several significant benefits for QA teams.
Increased Efficiency
The setup for tests is quicker, there is the possibility to use more devices, and managing the environment in a simpler way makes the performance of the QA team much better.
Improved Test Coverage
Checking the application on many different devices helps to find more problems that could have been overlooked if we only used usual methods.
Enhanced Collaboration
Device clouds allow quality assurance teams to easily exchange test outcomes, reports of errors and logs from devices with the people who develop them. This leads to better teamwork and quicker solving of problems.
Beyond Efficiency – Fostering Better Collaboration
Device cloud testing’s advantages go past simply making things faster. It helps QA teams and developers work together in a more effective way.
Real-Time Bug Reporting
Device clouds usually have options like recording test sessions on video and reporting bugs immediately. This enables QA groups to give developers feedback that’s clear and can be acted upon quickly, which speeds up the process of correcting errors.
Shared Visibility and Transparency
Centralized test outcomes and records from devices make it possible for QA teams and developers to see clearly how the application works on various devices. This clarity helps create a shared feeling of ownership and responsibility for the quality.
Improved Communication
Device clouds make it easier for teams to talk to each other. Developers can see test logs and bug reports themselves, which helps them know the problems from how testers see them, making solving these issues quicker and better.
Getting Started with Device Cloud Testing
- Identify Your Needs
Look at how you test now and see where using a group of devices through the internet could help a lot.
- Research Different Providers
Different providers of cloud services for devices have a range of features and options for mobile application testing. You should think about things such as Are the devices you need available on the platform? How long does it take to reach the support team? And what’s the costs/investment that one needs to make when choosing a tool of their choice.
- Start Small
Begin by incorporating testing on a cloud of devices for certain tasks or features, instead of attempting to completely change your whole test procedure all at once. This allows your team to learn the ropes and see the benefits firsthand.
- Invest in Training
Although device clouds are easy to use, it might be good to avail some training for your Quality Assurance team so they can fully utilize all the capabilities of the platform.
Conclusion – Embracing the Future of Collaborative Testing
Mobile application testing on the cloud goes beyond being efficient; it allows quality assurance teams to gain more power and work more closely with those who develop applications. Device clouds help remove barriers between the people who build and test applications, bringing in much clarity into various systems and processes.
Access to test outcomes and reports of bugs in the moment helps programmers find problems swiftly, which speeds up how fast they can develop. Device clouds also make communication smooth by providing shared screens for information and built-in chat features.
