News

App Testing Tool Seeks to Get Devs Closer to Users

• By David Ramel
• October 15, 2015

App testing and analytics specialist Perfecto Mobile introduced a new tool designed to provide more real-world UX scenarios to development teams testing and fine-tuning their apps.

Claiming an industry first, the company said the Wind Tunnel tool "breaks through the barrier of connecting development teams and their target end-users, allowing them to focus on the precise experience of those users when testing their apps."

Wind Tunnel helps developers tune their apps for often sub-optimal experiences that real users have to deal with, such as degraded network connections, low batteries, peak usage constraints, conflicting apps and call interruptions, the company said. To do that, user profiles are provided, based on different customer types. Some of these customer profiles include corporate road warrior, college student, gamer and multimedia user and stay-at-home mom.

The profiles include the main traits that help define such user segments, such as their age, habits, and attitudes, and the testing requirements suitable for each scenario. For example, Georgia, the corporate road warrior, is 47, travels often while connecting to different networks, is a loyal Apple customer who uses multiple devices and makes big use of social, banking and enterprise apps. Testing requirements for such a user would include testing the newest Apple devices, such as smartwatches, and preparation for app conflicts, interruptions, alerts and changing networks. Those testing requirements differ greatly from, say, a 20-year-old college student using older Android devices.

Wind Tunnel is an adjunct to the company's Continuous Quality Lab, a cloud-based test environment that provides real devices and end-user conditions.

Perfecto said its solution helps companies produce better apps in an age of digital engagement fueled by the enterprise mobility phenomenon, where app performance has important business implications.

"When digital engagement becomes central to an enterprise's business strategy, quality plays a stronger role in success," said exec Roi Carmel. "Poor quality and negative user experiences create avoidable business costs, or worse, cause churn. The first of its kind, Wind Tunnel simplifies the process of testing the conditions that often weaken the user experience by allowing dev/test teams to adopt the end user's pers