Swipe Right: How to Test Multi-Finger Gestures for Your Mobile App
Mobile applications are becoming increasingly complex, and developers are tasked with delivering new and innovative experiences to their users. Part of this includes delivering new ways in which customers engage with your UI.
Mobile users today are more advanced than ever; they have high levels of technical know-how and have less barriers of entry for trying something new. This gives mobile developers more opportunities to be creative and deliver app experiences that are new or unique.
To do this, developers must consider how to adequately test for a good mobile experience, which is why we support user-centric, multi-finger gesture testing with BitBar.
What is Multi-Finger Gesture Testing?
Multi-finger gesture testing is the process of testing your mobile app’s responsiveness to actions requiring two or more fingers touching the screen at the same time.
In a typical test you would first establish what type of gesture is occurring (scroll or swipe, pinch, rotate) and then test for what action you expect to occur. For instance, you might expect a pinching action to zoom out of the view in your app, or for a swipe motion to load the next screen in a carousel.
Multi-Finger Gestures Aren’t All The Same
It’s important to recognize that not all gestures will produce the same action. On one app, pinching the screen may lead to a zoom out effect, but on other apps, the pinching motion might lead to a “drag and drop” action instead.
It was important to us to make sure we considered how a developer or tester can have a say in how these tests are run. BitBar product owner, Jakub Czop, described the development
challenge simply: “How do you enable a tester, who has only one mouse, to replicate their own multi-finger app experience?”
The emphasis here was on “their own” – for us to make sure a developers bespoke app experience is met with bespoke testing capabilities. So, when you use BitBar for multi-finger testing, you will find you can select which gesture to test, but then the resulting action will be custom to your app experience.
How to Run a Multi-Finger Gesture Test Using BitBar?
Multi-finger gesture testing is available for live tests on mobile and tablet devices. From your app testing menu, select “Live testing” and then “Start a mobile app live test”. Once you select a device, you can begin testing and you will see multi-touch options from within the testing menu.
There are three primary actions you can test using BitBar: Scroll/swipe, Pinch, and Rotate.
When you select a gesture, new icons will appear over your screen showing possible finger placement and you’ll also have a medial button to move the action center point. To test, simply drag and drop the blue indicators in the suggested direction and record your results!
BitBar Creates Mobile App Success
BitBar is the preferred tool for mobile app developers looking for coverage and quality. With it, you’ll gain access to hundreds of real devices your customers are using. You’ll find features like multi-finger gesture, biometrics, and geolocation testing so you can deliver the best user experience regardless of how complex your app gets. And with multiple deployment and executions options, including private clouds and cloud side execution, you can run your tests in a way that is most compatible to your business.
Getting started is free, quick, and easy! Start your free trial today and begin shipping your mobile apps with greater confidence.