GameBench brings its game-testing technology to the world of apps

We're excited to announce that GameBench has just entered into a key partnership with TestPlant, a leader in the automated app testing space.

We're working to allow our respective products, GameBench-A and eggPlant, to work seamlessly with each other, so that TestPlant customers -- including brands like HP, Nike, MTV many others -- can gain extra performance insights from their automated app testing.

These customers will be able to script a set of user actions and deploy that script hundreds or thousands of times across different software builds or different hardware models in order to rapidly identify UX slow-downs, graphics bottlenecks and other optimisation issues. All the performance data from these automated tests will be fed back to their GameBench dashboard for visualisation, comparison and sharing with other team members. 

For GameBench, this partnership means that we're no longer solely useful to game developers, but also to the creators of enterprise apps -- including those in sectors like retail, finance and media/streaming. Wherever visual fluidity and responsiveness are crucial to the overall UX, GameBench's frame rate metrics can reveal new, actionable insights for QA.  

To help illustrate these insights, GameBench and TestPlant will soon be releasing a short white paper that compares the fluidity and responsiveness of a sample of clothing retail apps -- and we think some of our findings will surprise you. 

For more information, please refer to the press release copied below: 

 

TestPlant and GameBench team up to bring UX testing to digital business

Joint solution helps businesses ensure the fluidity and responsiveness of mobile apps to support customer acquisition and retention

London, UK – February 24th, 2016 – TestPlant, the maker of the eggPlant range of software quality tools, today announced a technology partnership with GameBench, a leader in cross-platform performance profiling and testing for iOS and Android. Together, the companies are providing an integrated solution that brings automated user experience (UX) testing to mobile applications.

GameBench is a recognized leader in game testing and provides developers and QA engineers with the ability to quickly check the UX performance and responsiveness of their apps. The company works with major partners, including Samsung, ARM, Intel, Qualcomm and Natural Motion.

TestPlant provides a comprehensive set of software test automation solutions for digital business, ranging from functional and performance testing to network virtualization and test environment management. The eggPlant tools help organizations including Wal-Mart, BT and Nationwide improve their productivity and quality.

Together, the companies are offering a joint solution that encompasses GameBench’s UX testing capabilities combined with eggPlant Functional, which uses a patented, image-based approach to automate functional testing.

User experience matters

For businesses, UX impacts directly on customer acquisition and retention. In addition to ensuring correct functionality, apps must also deliver seamless fluidity and responsiveness or customers will go elsewhere. As apps become more advanced, such as using higher-res images, media streaming, and even VR and AR, the need to keep an eye on performance becomes ever more critical.

In a study commissioned by Google, 52% of users said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company. And 48% said that if a site didn’t work well on their smartphones, it made them feel like the company didn’t care about their business.

“A frictionless UX gives users an impression of quality and keeps them engaged with your app and your digital business,” said Antony Edwards, CTO, TestPlant. “That's why GameBench helps eggPlant users achieve greater quality.”

“A key element of UX is the "smoothness" of the app. Does scrolling judder? Do you get random pauses?” said Sri Kannan Iyer, CEO and co-founder, GameBench. “Even relatively basic experiences, such as scrolling through a catalogue of images, can grind to halt on high-end smartphones if they are not built and optimized correctly. That’s where GameBench comes in.”

UK retail apps study

As part of their initial work together, TestPlant and GameBench are conducting a study into the UX offered by the mobile apps of several large retailers in the UK. The study will measure frame rates (the best objective correlate of smoothness) for each app to determine the UX performance of each app. A report will be published and the results will be released soon.

About GameBench

GameBench is the industry leader for cross-platform performance testing on iOS and Android. Its tools enable developers and QA engineers to quickly check the graphical fluidity, responsiveness and resource consumption of games and apps across different devices. The company also works with major hardware partners such as Samsung, ARM and NVIDIA to ensure that consumers are getting the real-world mobile performance they pay for. Meanwhile, with thousands of active users of its free performance-testing tools, GameBench has access to unique crowdsourced intelligence spanning thousands of apps and devices across the mobile ecosystem. For more information, visit www.gamebench.net

About TestPlant

TestPlant is an international software business based in London. It has development centers in the USA and the UK with sales and support centers in the USA, the UK, Germany, China and Japan as well as an extensive network of business partners. TestPlant's products are used in over 40 countries by well over 350 enterprise customers in sectors which include Financial Services, Automotive, Healthcare and Life Sciences, Media and Entertainment, Retail and Defense and Aerospace. The eggPlant range is a set of tools which supports the design, development, test and management of software applications for mainframe, desktop and mobile use in any technology platform environment. The tools are relevant in agile, mobile, web and DevOps deployments. eggPlant use improves and reports on the quality and responsiveness of software systems, reduces time to market and lowers costs by introducing process automation. The eggPlant tools have been granted patents in the USA and in Europe. TestPlant is a Red Herring Global Top 100 company, a Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 and EMEA 500 business, a member of the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 and is the recipient of two Queen's Awards for Enterprise. The Carlyle Group is a major investor in the company. www.testplant.com

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TestPlant Media contact:

Danny Sullivan

PERGALI Ltd.

Tel: +44 772 497 4255

Email: dsullivan@pergali.com

GameBench media contact:

Sharif Sakr

GameBench Ltd

Email: sharif@gamebench.net