The real cost of ignoring device testing

The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. Nobody bills you for neglecting device testing. The cost shows up somewhere else.

The version of the app your customers are running is rarely the one you just shipped. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

Where the cost lands

• Time spent on work that should not have been necessary
• Enquiries that quietly never arrive
• The newest phone is not the phone your customers own
• Rework, once the problem is finally visible

Test on mid-range hardware and poor networks. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

A reasonable first step

Automate the regression path, test the rest by hand. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

How to tell if yours is fine

Mobile releases are slower to correct than web ones, so the cost of shipping a mistake is higher. Three things worth confirming about device testing before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Test on mid-range hardware and poor networks — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.