Mobile Testing: New Challenges and Perceived Difficulties From Developers of the Italian Industry

Automated Graphical User Interface (GUI) testing is a fundamental part of the Verification and Validation process of every software, but it is often linked to notable maintenance costs, especially for mobile applications. The literature reports a general lack of automated testing adoption among mobile developers in the industry. In this article, we present the outcome of seven interviews centered on how companies automate the testing process of mobile applications. The interviews confirmed that automated testing is still not widely adopted and rarely formalized by industry, with manual testing being still the primary form of testing. Test fragility and evolution of the user interface are seen as a relevant issue by developers, with a cost of around 30% of the overall maintenance performed on test suites. Some clear shared needs emerged during our interviews that can be considered hints for the added research effort from academia in meeting the needs of industry.