Wind River broadens portfolio of Android device test software

BANGALORE, INDIA: Wind River, a world leader in embedded and mobile software, introduced an Android test development kit designed to assist in the validation of the device user experience by reproducing human interactions to test user interfaces.

Wind River UX Test Development Kit is an Eclipse-based test-authoring environment enabling the rapid creation of automated test scripts for Android devices, applications and browser-based web content. The automated execution of these real-world tests can replace a significant amount of manual testing and reduce testing time.

“Among the motives for why consumers return their mobile devices, a top reason is a disappointing user experience. By using breakthrough Wind River innovation to construct efficient testing tools to develop reliable applications and fulfilling user experiences, operators and device manufacturers can create greater customer satisfaction to improve the bottom line,” said Venkatesh Kumaran, country manager Wind River India.

“Wind River is changing the user experience test paradigm. Wind River UX Test Development Kit tests are reusable across hardware configuration and software versions, helping to decrease the effort to build test scripts for new use cases by as much as 70 percent. With access to automatic tests that mimic human behaviour during software testing, developers can dramatically reduce testing cycles and time-to-market.”

UX Test Development Kit automated tests manipulate the device like a real-world user by interacting with applications through the user interface. For example, a quality assurance engineer can automate scenarios to test the user experience when interacting with graphic interface elements such as dragging items or typing entries on a physical or virtual keyboard.

Unlike legacy user interface testing solutions, the same test script can be used for Android devices with different hardware characteristics, allowing the quality assurance team to maintain the same test-case database whether the device under test is a smartphone, tablet or any other Android device. Test scripts authored using UX Test Development Kit are fully managed and automatically executed using Wind River Framework for Automated Software Testing (FAST) for Android, a comprehensive automated software testing solution for Android-based devices.

UX Test Development Kit includes abstract tests for standard Android applications such as browser, camera, contacts, media player and e-mail as well as sample test scripts for Android Market applications such as Google Maps, Facebook and Twitter. UX Test Development Kit also allows the rapid creation of test scripts that interact with HTML5 applications and web pages through the native Android browser. To facilitate troubleshooting, UX Test Development Kit tests also run an advanced debugging mechanism to track and more readily identify software issues.

Wind River also launched the latest version of Wind River FAST for Android that can be used to test any Android-based device. Wind River FAST for Android offers new features that deliver easier handling and greater insights into the devices under test. Key features include the following:

* FAST Android Score, a benchmarking index that assesses a device’s performance via a quick comparison against Android reference devices, rapidly generates a score from a series of tests, incorporating the key performance driving components of an Android device, without having to run the entire set of FAST tests.
* Easy-to-use wizard tools allow quick board configuration and test creation.
* Monitoring features illustrate CPU usage, memory load and power consumption.
* Expanded set of test assets created to test battery life, update mechanism for Android, Stagefright media framework and additional audio and video media capabilities.