First and foremost, let’s understand first what interruptions are. In simple words, an interruption is a thing that provides resistance, delay, or obstruction to something or someone.
Now it comes to the phenomenon, Mobile Interrupt Testing. It is a form of mobile application testing that deals with the behavior of an application when it is interrupted in the foreground and resumes to a state before the interruption.
The variety of devices, networks, configurations, etc. makes this form of testing appropriate for mobile applications.
To figure out those interruptions and come up with a solution for those is interrupt testing. If we talk about mobile, web or any other applications to be tested let’s figure out various interruptions:
- Battery low
- Battery full- when charging
- Incoming phone call
- Incoming SMS
- Incoming Alert from another mobile application
- Plugged in for charging
- Plugged out from charging
- Device shut off
- Application Update reminders
- Alarm
- Network connection loss
- Network connection restoration
So to look up the above interruptions there can be some resolutions for that which can be considered to handle such scenarios.
1. Run in the background: The interruption takes over while the application takes a back seat. It gains control after the interruption ends.
2. Show alert: Alert disappears, and you work as usual: This can be explained as when an application is in use and some messages come from other applications at that time, they can be shown as message alerts on top, now it’s the user’s choice to read them or ignore them and continue with the current application.
3. Call to Action: Alarms have to be turned off or snoozed before you continue working. Same thing with App update messages. You either have to Cancel or Accept the changes before you proceed. Another example is that of the low battery alert- You can choose to continue as usual or go into a low power mode.
4. No impact: If a network connection becomes available and your device connects to it. Also, when you plug your device in for charging, no alert or call to action step is necessary. It will probably do its job while you continue using your application.
Interrupt testing when considered in mind for an application and proceeded ensures stable products in an adverse environment, so Interrupt Testing is not necessarily a failure. It is a mere distraction.
How to Conduct Mobile Interrupt Testing
Just look at this scenario: Google Chrome or any browser for that matter has to run in the background when the user receives an incoming phone call. This is something of a functional requirement of the Google Chrome app. It means, Interrupt Testing is a subset of Mobile Application Functional Testing. So to conduct Interrupt Testing, you would follow the same Mobile Application Test, Frameworks, and Tools.
And it is the skill of the tester to conceive these scenarios. Once done, you would design the test cases and execute them in the same way as any other test. And please don’t get confused with the interrupt testing with the recovery testing. Recovery testing is to validate the restoration from a failure. Interrupt testing is not necessarily a failure. It is a mere distraction.
The need for interrupt testing with various scenarios is quintessential in this mobile app where competition is pretty much high between similar types of apps. The best app with excellent user experience is always highly regarded, referred to, and chosen by users.
A Road to Conclusion
If you have been neglecting interrupt testing in the past, we hope you are now eager to integrate it into your testing strategy. But first, you have to define all the possible interactions and the expected behavior of the app. Then you can proceed to create test cases with your preferred tools, automate them, and run them in parallel on as many devices as possible.
