The Test Pyramid

The flipped testing pyramid has no stable foundation and mobile testing requires lots of manual testing, which is why I created my own mobile test pyramid consisting of four layers including manual and automated steps. The biggest layer of the pyramid is manual testing and forms the strong foundation for every mobile app project, followed by end-to-end testing, beta testing and a top layer comprising unit testing. The grey parts of the pyramid indicate the automated steps and the white parts are the manual testing steps. The beta-testing layer is new to the pyramid but essential to every mobile app project. Keeping the high expectations of the mobile users in mind requires this layer to be part of every mobile project to get early feedback from your mobile customers. You can either use a crowd testing approach for your beta testing or you can ask your colleagues to beta test early versions of your app to provide important feedback.

The Test Pyramid is a conceptual framework for structuring automated tests efficiently across three levels: unit tests, service tests, and user interface (UI) tests.

The foundation of the pyramid consists of unit tests, which are small, fast, and provide immediate feedback to developers by pinpointing issues in the code.

The middle layer consists of service-level tests, which validate an application’s internal services and logic independently of the UI, filling the gap between unit and UI testing.

The top layer comprises UI tests, which are the most expensive and brittle, so they should be minimized. 

The Test Pyramid emphasizes a greater number of low-cost, reliable tests at the base and fewer high-cost, fragile tests at the top, ensuring an efficient and maintainable test automation strategy.