Best Approach For Testing Wearable Devices

The market of wearable technology is blowing up faster and is composed of its own massive ecosystem. The demnd for wearable app development is rapidly increasing. However, there are new challenges with quality assurance and testing of wearable apps as the technology is rapidly evolving.

No device is more personal other than a wearable. So, this object needs to function as an extension of the body, this makes testing wearables a very important frontier for the companies that demands a good user experience.  

What Are Wearables?

Wearables are a part of IoT and are the core devices which are worn, possess a sensor suite and require a computational power which handles the data and tasks. These can be in many forms and shapes, from a tiny earbud that can track sleep to a small skin patch that can monitor sweat and your activity levels. With their wide range of functionality can serve many needs. Potentially the use of these kinds of applications is unlimited which makes it a big deal in the IT industry.

Wearables are packed up with many functions in a small space, and this can create a new testing challenge. The constant concerns are in developing hardware or an app that can run on a small screen, battery, usability. And there comes a challenge in testing these in labs that how they behave on wear and tear and this takes a new meaning in the world.

Testing Wearables

Being a tester we must be ready to take the challenge. Testers must have better knowledge of wearables and the approach. This can be done by designing a model that helps to cover all the cases under different aspects.

Also Read The Inevitable Need For Mobile App Quality Assurance

Focus Areas for Usability Testing in Wearables

While the testing is underway, there are some specific areas which should be considered for usability testing. These are as follows:

Gesture and Voice Input

Now consider that wearables are most of the time on users body and users move in unexpected directions. Consider a hello wave interrupting tracking or switching a smartwatch from an ambient mode to interactive mode. Difficulty in registering different voice tones. Such kind of input inconsistencies can be considered to make or break for the user.

Permissions and Security Issues

Wearables are designed in a way so that these can gather all the sensitive information and this information can be stored on the cloud. So this should be very clear that what the app would do, what kind of information it gathers and always gives an output.

Connectivity and Integrations

Now, most of the wearables connect the mobile through Bluetooth. This is the most important point to test as connectivity issues can frustrate the users. So testing should be done well from every direction.