Deliver Flawless Mobile Experiences With UX Testing

A five-star user experience has become the standard expectation for not just web applications but mobile applications as well. With the rise of mobile banking, mobile commerce, mobile healthcare and more, consumers have come to rely on mobile applications “on the go” and often for more time-sensitive transactions or situations where a flawless user experience and fast performance is key. 

The Steady & Continuous Rise of Mobile 

In 2021, 276.8 million people in the United States accessed the internet through any kind of mobile device. In 2023, this figure is projected to total over 287 million mobile internet users. With the continuous rise of mobile, you must be equipped to allocate your testing efforts accordingly and invest in user experience (UX) testing to ensure a seamless UX—especially when there is an increased load on your mobile applications. 

Load Happens: How Load Affects Your UX 

Daily, your mobile apps may be performing as expected. However, are you prepared for sudden, extreme increases in app usage by your customers? Here are some examples of seasonal, occasional, and unexpected situations when you might be faced with above-average load depending on your industry: 

• Black Friday
• Superbowl Sunday
• Peak travel season, holidays
• After a major launch
• Weather emergencies
• Financial meltdowns 

Unless you intentionally perform load testing, you cannot assume that your apps will provide the same, excellent user experience across extreme high vs. low traffic periods. When apps are met with extreme load without prior testing, bad things can happen such as the following: 

• App crashes and downtime
• Latency and slow performance
• Rise of support tickets
• Poor mobile app ratings
• Risk of your customers moving to your competitors 

And let’s be clear—load is not necessarily a bad thing. It usually indicates increased usage and demand for your apps, which is fantastic for your business. Therefore, you need to load test your UX to simulate real user scenarios and ensure your apps work well, under all types of traffic conditions. 

Considerations for Mobile UX Testing 

Until now, there wasn’t a solution to run performance tests from a mobile user’s perspective. It’s no surprise that web browser testing is quite different than mobile device testing. There are many variables and characteristics in mobile performance testing that can affect UX that simply are not applicable to web browser testing. 

Mobile-specific variables include: 

• Mobile device hardware – Performance will differ across various devices such as iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy S22, Google Pixel 6, etc.
• Mobile networks - A mobile device will perform differently when it is connected to Wifi versus 5G versus 3G, etc.
• Types of mobile apps - Performance will vary across native mobile, mobile web and hybrid apps.
• Biometric authentication – Facial, fingerprint and voice recognition are forms of biometric authentication commonly used in mobile applications that impact UX. 

Mobile UX Testing with Perfecto & BlazeMeter 

Combined with BlazeMeter, we are proud to be the first in the industry to offer UX load testing that simulates real-world conditions for your mobile devices. 

Using BlazeMeter in tandem with Perfecto, you can test both your mobile user experience along with your backend under load in the cloud and scale up to two million virtual users. We take all the above-mentioned mobile-specific variables and characteristics into consideration to simulate realistic mobile traffic patterns. 

You can generate detailed server and end-user experience reports to help you measure and understand how your mobile app is impacted under a load. 

By combining Perfecto + BlazeMeter, you’ll be able to understand the following: 

• Does a given load slow down the server?
• If so, what is causing the slowness?
• Is this slowness visible to mobile users?
• If so, which mobile users are being impacted, and under what conditions? 

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Conclusion  

With mobile device usage being more popular than ever, it’s crucial to be proactive and perform load testing for your mobile UX, so you can provide flawless and reliable end-user experiences for your customers. Load testing from BlazeMeter enhances Perfecto’s mobile testing capabilities by giving teams a clear view of the entire mobile experience. 

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