The 5 Step Process for Mobile Testing by Pairing

While I was researching some things on the web, I came across this approach of Paired Testing. It is basically two testers pairing up and doing testing (One could be the driver and other the observer - giving test ideas, or both could be drivers. Plus, I also read different variations of this).  Seeing this I thought, Hey!!! Why not use this in mobile testing!!!.

So, I tried doing Paired Scripted testing using mobile devices.  This is how I did it and proved to be really useful-

The 5 Step Process for Mobile Paired Scripted Testing-

Step 1-

Open up the document containing your test cases in a laptop and connect it to a monitor/projector or any large screen. This serves as one single point of reference for both the testers pairing up and makes things much easier

.Step 2- Pair up with your colleague/tester and choose the devices you are going to test with. As I have mentioned earlier there are so many devices, with different Operating Systems, different browsers. So make your decision based on what is required by your project/stakeholders.

Step 3- Two testers execute the same test case on two different devices.  For example - When I am executing Test Case 1, the other tester I am pairing up with, will execute the same test case on a different device.

Step 4- Once we execute the test case in our respecitve devices, we compare the result with each other and brainstorm other ideas/observations. (We basically sit next to each other and have one monitor for reference so sharing of information is much easier)I personally have found numerous bugs by doing this, as we simultaneously execute the same test case on 2 different devices and keep comparing them to find any observations or unexpected behavior.

For example - I have found the same page to act differently on different android versions and using this approach helped to find these kind of rendering issues specific to webkit versions, browsers or operating systems.

Step 5- Now, we switch the device for another device and execute the same test case.

For example- If I executed a test case on an iPad, then I would take a HTC rezound and execute the same test case then compare it with my partner who is also executing the same test case on a different device.

By following the above steps for each test case, you would have got so may different observations and would have gained so much knowledge about your application and the devices. I personally got more value out of it.

With mobile being such a vast domain, something like this may/may not be beneficial. But hey!!! it is worth a short and that is precisely what happened in my case. Thus Paired scripted testing worked for me. It is also fascinating to see how a simple concept has so much potential and can be customized based on ones needs.

Anyways, hope this was helpful. Hit me up in case of any questions.