OTT applications became very popular during the pandemic when many office workers were forced to work remotely. Today, this sector continues to develop actively and is increasingly in demand. You should use automated testing to create a high-quality product that users will love. It will allow you to quickly and easily identify the slightest errors that may adversely affect the video playback latency or image quality. Today we want to discuss the benefits of QA automation for OTT applications and at what stages it is best to apply.
Main Challenges of Testing OTT Applications
Typically, when creating OTT applications, unit testing is already included. When a programmer makes a program code, it is disassembled into specific modules, each responding to certain functions, for example, playing a video, registering on a site, or paying for services. After writing each module, testing is done to ensure it works correctly. After all the modules are ready, they are assembled into one powerful software, like puzzles. After this, testing is repeated to understand how all the modules are compatible and work harmoniously in a giant organism.
As you can see, this process can take quite a lot of time and effort. The main technical challenges in media testing are that a specialist must conduct many tests. An example flow would look like this: 3 platforms * 3 models * 300 test cases = 2700 test cases per application that need to be tested and validated before being submitted for certification and publication.
For a wide variety of SmartTVs and set-top boxes as well as mobile platforms, developers today create many apps. These gadgets also include some other smart TV sources for example from Samsung or Apple. When creating software, it is important to take into account the features of each of these platforms. For each device model, you must typically create about 350 test cases, which requires a lot of work..
How automation affects the quality of testing?
As you can see, testing software for OTT platforms takes a lot of time due to many tests. Automation allows you to speed up this process as much as possible because it will enable you to conduct many tests in parallel with each other.
In addition, manual tests may only reveal some errors due to human factors or may not be noticed due to a lack of necessary techniques and tools. Testing OTT applications are much more complex than trying regular websites or standard applications. TV automation scripts are digital and dynamic on a per-channel basis, consequently they offer little to no feedback.
When testing different OTT applications, you need to take into account a considerable number of factors:
- Advertising. In most cases, advertising is the primary source of income in OTT applications. It would help if you understood that people from different countries could use your resource, so advertisements should be divided depending on the user’s location. Writing tests for ads is a complex process.
- Channel behavior. Please make sure that your OTT application works correctly regardless of these devices. It would help if you also saw how the application changes and the video or sound quality with a low Internet speed.
- Authentication. Defects or failures during these processes can have harmful consequences for our customers. It can also cause some legal problems.
- User interface and image quality. The interface must be pleasant to use, and the application must have easy navigation. Testing this is difficult since you have to simulate human behavior to understand which interface elements may be inconvenient.
- Video and audio. Users want to use your app to access quality content. It means that you must ensure that the video loads quickly, the image matches the sound, and the quality of the image itself is high.
- Links and search features. It is vital that your customers can quickly and easily find the content they need. For this, search engines within the platform itself are often used. Automated testing allows you to check how well it works.
As you can see, OTT platform testing aims to cover all aspects of software operation. Automation allows you to speed up this process as much as possible and make a deeper code coverage to identify the slightest errors.
When should you implement automated testing?
Practice shows that automatic testing should be present in all software development cycles and after the project’s release. When you are just starting to create software, you need to create a testing strategy in parallel and choose tools based on the libraries or frameworks the developer will use.
Gradually, as you write code, you should do intermediate tests to catch bugs before they can lead to big problems.
After the development is completed, it must undergo extensive complex testing. It will allow you to understand how your product meets the goals and objectives for which it was created and whether it can compete.
After your OTT application has entered the market, testing does not end because you will regularly add new modules, expand the list of video and audio, or change subscription terms. Any intervention in the code is worth testing because it can lead to various problems (even the most unexpected ones). In addition, as the number of users increases, the load on the application also increases, which can lead to various malfunctions.