TestBird Deng Fei: How to Effectively Improve App Testing Efficiency - A Lightweight App Automation Solution

App retention problem is serious, and self-testing mode has defects. At the beginning of the
speech , TestBird CTO Deng Fei shared with the guests the current situation of the app market and the current defects in the automated testing of apps: With the rapid popularization of smartphones in China's emerging markets, mobile app development is also extremely rapid. In 2016, China's app downloads will reach 49 billion, and by 2020, this number will reach 90.2 billion. From 2016 to 2020, downloads from third-party Android stores are expected to increase by 84%, with strong growth in apps.

Although the number of apps is increasing, the user retention rate of ordinary apps has been declining again and again. According to authoritative data surveys, less than 1 month, more than 95% of users will reduce the frequency of application use or "put it into the cold palace" due to the decline in experience. Within 3 months, 65% of users may directly use these previous applications. Apps that have been "cold out" are directly deleted, and the user retention rate of ordinary apps has dropped significantly.

Generally speaking, the factors that directly lead to the death of the app are also an important reason for the app to be taken off the shelf: the poor quality of the app leads to poor user experience, accounting for 46.3%. The main quality problems are UI abnormalities, freezes, black screens and Startup failed.
Faced with such a problem, of course, most companies will not "stand still", and the answers they give are almost always to ensure the quality of products through testing. However, due to the shorter iteration cycle of today's products, more terminals are required for testing, and the stock of Use cases are more robust, making it difficult for tests to escape the assistance of automation. However, the three usage modes of "complete black box", "recording and playback-based" and "script-based" that are commonly used in automation in the industry currently have flaws that cannot be ignored.

To improve the ROI of automated testing, TestBird launches Quail system
In response to the shortcomings of the existing automation use model, Deng Fei said in his speech: "The core of automated testing is ROI, then through Google's classic test logic diagram analysis, I personally think that the key to App UI automation testing is to solve the high threshold and low return rate. At the same time, we need to build an easy-to-use and simple test platform, and reduce the maintenance cost of use cases as much as possible. Then, based on this idea, TestBird proposed a completely online automated testing cloud service Quail, Quail is a set based on recording & playback The fully online cloud service system of the mode makes the environment construction easier. At the same time, it adopts a manual + automated test solution, which reuses manual test resources, and has the ability to record on one machine and play back on multiple machines. "

Afterwards, TestBird CTO Deng Fei gave a detailed breakdown of the Quail use case concept, test execution process, its logical architecture and information flow through the on-site real machine operation demonstration, and shared TestBird's solutions to the key technical problems of the Quail system. plan.

At the end of the speech, TestBird CTO Fei Deng concluded: "To maximize the ROI of automated testing, we need to do the following three points: let people who understand the business perform automation; manual test asset reuse is a feasible and efficient way; SaaS and It is not PaaS, and the method we take is Quail. The Quail system uses cloud services to simplify the construction of the test environment, and its biggest highlight is:

❶ Centralized management of mobile phone resources, Web access, easy access, no SDK.


❷ Test cases Through the use case picture, the high threshold of traditional self-test script use case writing is cleverly bypassed, and the learning cost is close to zero.


❸ At the same time, the picture recording process is exactly the same as the manual test, and Quail supports more than one recording This makes the reuse of manual test assets possible. It has a variety of automatic comparison methods (picture comparison, parameter result comparison, four operation logic), which makes it easier to find problems.

❹ In use case maintenance, through baseline comparison and function Comprehensive replacement and editing functions greatly reduce maintenance costs.


❺ In terms of playback, Quail supports one-machine recording and multiple-machine playback, and test results can also be generated with one click, which greatly improves test efficiency.


TestBird has received unanimous praise, and the Quail system has broad prospects.
Finally , Deng Fei added that for the Quail system, it still has a broader space for development:


❶ Multi-App interactive automated testing;


❷ Use case maintenance efficiency: support TestStep modularization, solve common problems Operation path reuse problem;


❸ User experience: page response time;


❹ Exposed automated Restful interface: Supports docking with Jenkins and various test management platforms.


After the speech, Deng Fei received unanimous praise from the guests present. At the same time, a large number of participants showed great interest in the new Quail system launched by TestBird, and they indicated that they would discuss relevant issues with TestBird CTO Deng Fei on the spot and left contact information for each other, expressing their willingness to conduct further in-depth communication. Among them, many senior test experts and a group of test practitioners have put forward their own opinions and possible development directions for the Quail system, so that the system has more possibilities; The advantage of Lai expressed great curiosity and concern, and asked Deng Fei a series of technical questions about the Quail system. Deng Fei also gave a clear answer to it, which not only solved the confusion, but also made the guests present more in-depth and comprehensive. Learn about the changes the Quail system has brought to the testing industry.