10 most common bugs in mobile apps
We all make mistakes. That’s why you need a QA team to double check your work, secure your health and life. If you are a surgeon, you have to count on yourself only, but our programmers have more luck. QA helps you to deliver high-quality products to your clients, and looks at the apps from a user’s perspective.
Bugs that we found out a daily basis can be divided into three groups:
- App-specific bugs. They are related to business argument of the app. They might be pretty hard to detect so deep app knowledge may really help you. It is also very important to write down test cases for such type of bugs.
- Platform-specific bugs. Each mobile platform (Android, iOS) has its own bugs connected to the way the operating system works.
- Specific bugs related to the basic elements of the app architecture.
In this article, I want to focus on the third type of bugs. They’re the most common to overlook. Let’s have a closer look at some of them!
Possibility of tapping buttons repeatedly
Let me introduce you to the first error of the programmer. A simple button can cause a serious problem if you do not handle the possibility of fast clicks. This case should be tested with special care in those apps where we make payments or send messages, because the action could be repeated many times. Imagine a status where you accidentally tapped “Pay” button twice and, as a result, you got charged twice.
Crash after clicking on button
This one is like a “time-bomb” hidden in your app. Usually, this applies to buttons that are “hidden” deep inside the app (eg. inside settings) which are relatively easy to overlook. Tapps on such a button makes application crash.
define the input type
First of all, we should always check if the right keyboard type was opened. It might be very useful for a user to display a keyboard type adjusted to an input field type. For example, for a phone number text field, we’d like to show a user a numeral keyboard and for an email text fielda keyboard having the “@” character. Believe it or not, users will be very thankful. We should also pay attention to another very important thing which is a password input type. It’s just not safe to use a text field for a password. Reading a password over someone’s shoulder is definitely much easier than reading their keystrokes.
landscape trend of the applications
Have you ever tried changing orientation of the screen and the current state of the application was not saved? For example, in Android system, a particular screen element, called Activity, might be destroyed with screen rotations, losing its current state. So after the rotation, all previously selected checkboxes or dropdowns might get cleared. An increasing number of apps block the use of a view, however, this is still a problem in apps that allow the horizontal view.
Push notifications
It’s hard to make them work for the first time, but they are a valuable relationship and engagement channel between an application and a user. It’s very important to make sure that they work correctly.
No error handling
Another key thing to remember is that you should always display an error to a user. But remember, displaying errors direct from the server can bring important information for the programmer, but not always for the end user. In the end, we create the application for them (users, not programmers), so it’s always better to show invalid login credentials than 401.
Page layout at different screen densities
As you all may know, the number of requirements for the development of mobile applications is growing rapidly. Device models often differ in size, resolution and operating system versions. As a good QA, you are responsible for making sure that the app looks good on all of these devices.
improvement indicator
It is also important to add a progress indicator to inform a user that an action is in progress. There are many situations where actions last for a while and in order to inform a user that something is happening right now, it is very sought to show a progress indicator. This includes such situations as screen loading, long network operations on button click like editing profile, uploading images, etc. Imagine user clicking on “upload” button in order to update their profile image. Without a progress indicator (during image upload process that may take a while) a user may click this button a few times again, thinking that nothing has happened.
Skipping selector on buttons
Remember, that all taps should have selectors. It helps a user to notice that an action has been performed. Otherwise, a click may be duplicated many times. Especially with a long-lasting action as described in #2 and #1 earlier in this article.
A special offer
Codinic is a company of professionals with industry experience which software services deliver. The company makes web and mobile applications for both companies and individuals. Their mission is to local, national, and international high-technology services to offer and the same time easy to make to the business together to work, both internally and externally. Visit codinic.com for more information.
