One of the good things about working in a cool company like www.maas360.com is that the management cares about learning opportunity for its employees. It understands that if the company has to be at the top, the employees have to work on their skills. One of the easy ways is to provide access to resources which will help the employees - books, conferences, contests, tutorials, memberships and so on. This is very easy to do but very few companies encourage such learning opportunity.
As soon as I got to know about the book https://leanpub.com/testmobileapps by Jonathan Kohl, I wanted to read it. The request was approved and I got a chance to read the book on the same day.
As seen on the site, the book covers a wide range of topics necessary to know about mobile app testing.
What did I learn from this book:
Reading the book was a very good experience. Every page had something new. I liked the initial chapters a lot compared to the strategy, planning chapters. I wanted to read this book on my mobile phone - landscape mode using QuickOffice Reader. This experience helped me find some bugs in QuickOffice Reader application and I could also experience using a mobile app.
Examples of different types of bugs
I like the books where the authors don't just mention what to do but also highlight their experience when they followed their own advice. Jonathan Kohl does a great job in highlighting his experiences in testing different types of mobile apps and what kid of bugs he found. Some of his bug stories are like the detective puzzles and teach you a lot.
What's inside a mobile and how it can affect tests
To be honest, I knew very little about the mobile hardware before starting this book compared to now when I am writing this blog post. You regularly move your mobile but are you aware of which sensors are affected? Do you have any idea of how your test results are indirectly and to some extent, directly affected by the mobile hardware? This book has a dedicated chapter and is a good starter for someone like me.
Different Tours
Though there are many tours mentioned in this book, I like the Gesture tour. Pinch/Tap/Flick/Swipe/Press - Which gesture do you like? I tried few of the gestures and found bugs specific to them. There are many different types of tours mentioned in this book. Ok, he not only mentions them but also explains as to how to conduct each tour.
Testing Mnemonics for Mobiles
Jonathan Kohl - creator of I SLICED UP FUN mnemonic also explains about few other mnemonics in this book. As a tester, its good to know such mnemonics so that you can apply them as and when required instead of thinking of new tests every time.
Dealing with Intermittent bugs
This topic is not new to many testers. James Bach talks about such bugs here -
www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/34 BBST course - Bug Advocacy section too highlights tips to tackle such bugs.
www.testingeducation.org/BBST Jonathan Kohl talks about intermittent bugs found during testing mobile apps. Small distractions, movements, network changes, orientation differences - how can they affect the bugs - the topic covers them all.
The book is worth the cost. Hope Jonathan writes more such books and continue to help the testing community.
Thanks Jonathan Kohl.
