Testing The Mash up App!

End user is the ultimate and the key determinant of the quality and the job of software testing companies is to enhance the end user experience. QA department brings good to the development companies by assuring that developer’s work and efforts don’t go in vain and it directs the developers to remain in line with the user and the technical requirement.   As I have rendered my services to Software QA Services Company, my core responsibility is to prepare test cases and scenarios, identify bugs and blemishes and report it to developers and make sure they fix it.

Some days ago, my team was testing a web application that is designed for the purpose of brand promotion, customer engagement and entertainment. The web app creates hysteria among the users by letting the users to create a mixture of 5 different videos by combining them into a single graphical interface, known as mash up. The app starts with a sound of engine roaring as a guy presses the acceleration pedal and gives pose to the camera. This video cannot be changed as it portrays the company’s offering (car) to the customers.

Videos available on the web app are related to different sounds, guy beating the drum, girl playing a violin, plane taking off, birds chirping in the trees etc. Such kinds of 64 videos are available on the website that provoke creativity and innovation among the users.  Website asks the user to select the videos according to their own likings.  After selecting the video, it combines it with the first one. Then the site again asks the user to select the video, from the list of videos available. Similarly after selecting 5 videos, the website combines the videos, creates a (video +audio) mash up and uploads it on the YouTube. A total of five videos can be combined in the mash up by the user, with the first video already included by the webmaster. So, mash up can contain maximum of 6 videos.

Here comes our job now. Functional testing was conducted to validate the video mash up functionality, sound loop quality and web links behavior. Moreover, usability testing was also performed to ensure the website comply with user friendly GUI standards.  Furthermore, cross browsing and platform testing was also conducted to check the app compatibility and behavior on different operating systems and web browsers. After carrying-out detailed testing and going through the nitty-gritty of the app, following bugs were identified.

More of the issues found were related to different platforms and web browsers. The testing was conducted by setting the internet bandwidth speed to 512kbs and 1mbps. The purpose of this practice is to check the app behavior and performance on various speeds.  When we test the app on Android devices, major memory leaks and crashes were identified and reported. The mobile browsers crashed as the user changed the viewing mode and switched it from portrait to landscape mode. Moreover, when tested on iPhone 3, app didn’t display any video and only audio signals were received. Another issue was the uneven crossfading between the audio and video. Uneven crossfading refers to the state where video part starts playing and audio comes later, after 2-3 seconds and vice versa. Similar issues related to uneven crossfading were also found in iPhone 4. Some web links, social media plugins were also dead and didn’t give any response when tested.

It was really a fun testing experience and with fun, we learnt a lot of things. My team never had tested such kind of web app, which charmed the users by creating Mash up. We learn that to test such kinds of apps that offer mash up amusement services, every video must be tested in a sequential manner by following the path defined by the developers. Moreover, both audio and video have to be tested separately and all videos in the database need to be verified to ensure a bug free application After, testing was conducted, bug verified and fixed, we delivered the project to the client and both started living happily.