Ensuring quality of user interface in mobile applications! United Testing Initiative (UTI), a collaborative organization focused on mobile application quality and consisting of representatives from AT & T, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Oracle, Orange, Samsung, Vodafone and Sony Ericsson have released the best practice guidelines for developing quality mobile applications. I have culled out the user interface portion of the best practice guidelines and I have converted them into quality guidelines of mobile applications. The user interface quality guidelines of mobile applications should certainly have the following features: Keep the status bar hidden only when the application’s user interface is better without it Ensure that the back button always navigates through previously-seen screens Make sure navigation between application elements are easy and intuitive Ensure that the application uses relative layouts and device independent pixels, without making any assumptions about screen size, resolution, orientation or input. Check if there are any hard coding of string values in code and strictly avoid them Ensure the time available is comfortable for reading what is present on the screen Check for the font sizes and readability of it by different user groups Check the size of on-screen elements and its responsiveness on touch screens Ensure that the application UI is consistent and becomes intuitive for usage. Consistency should be ensured even when calculations or image-rendering processes are being performed Application speed should be given importance considering the various influencing factors like connection speed, processing power of the device and the platform needs Error messages displayed should be easily understandable 5 second test – ensure that the function progress is known to the users within 5 seconds request time in real-time environment Check for display consistency of applications in various formats like portrait and landscape Application should be devoid of spelling errors and technical text errors This accounts for the most common user interface issues of mobile applications. Over and above this, there may be specific needs of applications that have to be addressed during the test case development process.
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