Making the Right Testing Choice
Different projects need different approaches. We walk you through what actually works for mobile app testing, based on real scenarios we've encountered over the years.
Talk to Our TeamTesting Isn't One-Size-Fits-All
We've worked with startups launching their first app and established companies managing entire ecosystems. The testing approach that works for a fintech app handling transactions won't be the same as what a social platform needs.
Some teams come to us wanting automated testing everywhere. Others think manual testing is enough. Usually, the answer sits somewhere in between, and it depends entirely on what you're building and where you are in your development cycle.
What matters is understanding your app's risk points and user expectations. An e-commerce checkout flow? That needs rigorous automated regression testing. A creative tool with frequent UI changes? Manual exploratory testing often catches the issues that matter most to users.
How We Approach Different Testing Needs
Every project gets a proper assessment before we recommend anything. Here's how we typically break down the decision-making process with clients.
Understanding Your Release Cycle
Are you deploying daily? Weekly? Monthly? The frequency of your releases changes everything about how we structure testing. Frequent releases benefit massively from automated smoke tests and continuous integration checks.
If you're on a longer release cycle with more substantial updates, we might recommend deeper manual testing rounds combined with targeted automation for your core user journeys.
Mapping Critical User Flows
What absolutely cannot break in your app? For a banking app, it's transactions and security. For a messaging app, it's message delivery and notifications. We identify these critical paths first and build comprehensive test coverage around them.
Secondary features get proportional attention. A rarely used settings menu doesn't need the same testing depth as your main value proposition.
Device and OS Fragmentation
Android fragmentation is real. You might need to support dozens of device-OS combinations. This is where automation becomes cost-effective. We set up test matrices that cover your actual user distribution, not every device in existence.
For iOS, the landscape is more controlled, but you still need to handle different screen sizes and iOS versions. We help you decide which combinations matter based on your analytics data.
Budget and Timeline Reality
Automated testing has upfront costs. Test scripts need writing and maintenance. Manual testing is more flexible early on but doesn't scale well. We're honest about these trade-offs.
Sometimes the right answer is starting with focused manual testing while building out automation gradually. Other times, particularly for mature apps, automation pays for itself within a few release cycles.
Real Scenarios from 2025 Projects
Earlier this year, we worked with a health and fitness app that was struggling with their testing strategy. They'd invested heavily in automated UI tests, but the tests broke constantly because their design team was iterating rapidly on the interface.
We shifted their approach. Automated tests focused on API responses and data integrity—the stuff that shouldn't change. UI testing became primarily manual with clear test cases. Their release confidence went up, and their test maintenance burden dropped significantly.
Another client, a logistics platform, had the opposite problem. They were manually testing the same delivery calculation flows every sprint. We automated those core algorithms and their various input scenarios. Now their team spends time exploring edge cases instead of repetitive validation.
The lesson? Testing strategy should serve your product and team, not follow what sounds impressive or what other companies do.
Who You'll Work With
Our testing specialists bring years of hands-on experience across different platforms and industries. They'll help you make informed decisions about your testing approach.
Callum Thwaite
Senior Test EngineerSpent seven years building test frameworks for mobile apps in fintech and healthcare. Callum's particularly good at explaining technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders and finding pragmatic solutions that fit actual budgets.
Freya Ashworth
QA Strategy LeadFreya helps teams transition from ad-hoc testing to structured quality processes. She's worked with over thirty apps through major pivots and scaling phases, so she understands how testing needs evolve as products mature.