This is a common question I have been asked in conferences and making my promise by blogging about it. So here goes.

If you are faced with limited resources whether it is devices, time and testers, here are some suggestions to focus your testing efforts on Android.

  •  Physical keyboard – e.g. Motorola Droid : Physical keyboard slider and entry has impact on custom input fields. You have to ensure that these input fields can take entry from physical keyboard. Another is usability issue as power users on keyboard does not like to switch between keyboard & touch screen, so your UI has to support keyboard whenever possible.
  • Non-standard virtual keyboard – e.g. HTC Evo/Incredible : Virtual keyboard in these 2 popular devices take up a lot of screen space and may cover your UI/entry fields. If you have custom numeric field, you have to ensure that you can enter digits. I have also come across pressing buttons in these devices produces different behavior (even not working at all).
  • Screens with tint – e.g. Atrix (grey tint), Captivate (blue tint) : You may have display issues on these devices if you use native drop down selections and buttons such as too dark. For such cases, you have to design custom images in place of native elements.
  • Low memory and slow processor : If you need to be conservative in the size of your app, make sure you tests on low memory and/or slow processors, usually older devices which can be tough to find. One alternative is to monitor memory consumption using ddms in Android SDK.
  • Screen sizes: Common screen physical size(screen's diagonal) from 3.x", 4", 4.3", 4.5". Tablet sizes range from 7.0" - 12".