Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality are all hot trends today in the world of technology. Organizations including giants and start-ups are equally dabbling with potential ways to leverage these technologies in solving end user requirements as well as creating newer and compelling end user experiences. While augmented reality application ideation and development pose their own challenges, augmented reality application testing has its own set of challenges to mitigate. Most often these challenges are similar to be addressed amongst varied entities in the product team – just that they need to be addressed from varied angles including design, dev, test etc.
On that similar note, was an interesting article we recently read on Google’s ARCore that talked about the AR plaform’s challenges, in their conference in Poland – https://mobile-ar.reality.news/news/google-developer-days-sheds-some-light-arcore-0179851/ – this is a good post that talks about the latest in augmented reality application engineering and if one were to look closely at the mentioned points therein, the challenges highlighted are all equally applicable for augmented app testing too – problems around motion tracking, plane finding, light estimation are all very valid issues for verifying too .
<span”>Complex and evolving technologies such as these make it essential for testers to further collaborate with the core engineering team and be current with latest trends, so as to arrive at common solutions in delivering a quality application for end users. While there are common problems for all, these are some problems specific to just testers in the space of augmented reality app testing. For example, the developer may have taken care of accessibility development guidelines while engineering but verifying the same in the testing phase is not very straightforward. Assistive tools support, including common ones such as screen readers for augmented apps is either very basic today or in most cases absent. With such nuances both from common engineering and test specific problems, the augmented reality app testing domain is going to give testers not just issues to tackle but rather several new opportunities that will significantly change the face of software testing and the careers of software testers! Exciting times ahead.