Urban Parking App testing: An Ultimate Guide For Successful Testing

Parking is becoming one of the most burning issues for thousands of car owners in many big cities globally. The reason is that the lack of free space might make you cruise around the needed area for hours but still fail to find a place for your car. Fortunately, car parking apps are here to help.

Many startups and big companies offer smart parking solutions for a wide audience in many locations. However, to remain successful, smart parking software should be carefully tested by professionals to avoid any flaws and performance issues. So, how to test the parking app in the most detailed and effective way? Let’s find out the answers!

Smart Parking: The Basics

The most important thing to know about parking-related solutions is that there are two types of applications that allow you to get a free place for your car and pay for it.

First, there are many apps that provide their users with unique opportunities to find available spots with a handy payment option (you can either reserve a place for later or get your place almost immediately.) In other words, these are on the fly and advanced parking apps. Second, there are applications that only allow you to pay for parking seamlessly (once you found the parking by yourself).

Since the first type of applications are more up-to-date and demanding for customers, we will focus on describing a testing flow for these digital solutions.

Parking Mobile Apps: Operating Principles

Most apps for parking include particular steps developed to make the user’s experience of using a product smooth and understandable. Here is a list of the most common stages of using these popular digital solutions:

• Registration: sign up/sign in to your personal account;
• Finding free spots: the user begins searching for a free space for their car;
• Comparison: using various types of filters, including time, cost, and other features;
• Booking: after choosing a free space, it’s time to reserve a place;
• Payment: paying for a parking place either by using the app or by cash in the chosen spot;
• Driving to the parking spot: navigating to the reserved place;
• Reaching the final destination: the user finds a reserved place and takes it.

Since proper QA testing is the process of testing a product to ensure that the finished product is created without defects and that all features are working properly, then the QA process must test all these stages of the parking app.

Top Popular Parking Applications

Currently, parking apps are widely used by customers in dozens of highly-populated cities. Here are a few most well-known digital products of this kind, however, these are just examples, and you may find many more that are popular in your area.

ParkMobile

This handy solution is currently available for US customers. The service offers two options – Ready to Park Now and Reserve Parking for Later. Currently, the app has over 30 million users and is ready to offer some unique functions:

• Finding a parking place according to the zone number in the needed area;
• Saving your favorite parking locations for the future;
• Extending parking time remotely by using an app;
• An ability to add up to 5 cars to your account;
• “Find my car” option.

RingGo

This application was designed for UK clients. It allows finding free parking spots in thousands of locations throughout the country and much more:

• Advanced navigation features to find a free space/get back to your car;
• Available in over 450 British towns;
• Various payment methods are available;
• Handy notification system.

EasyPark

This application is focused on European customers and allows you to book a place for your car in numerous big cities, including Barcelona, Berlin, Madrid, Stockholm, Rome, Oslo, Helsinki, Hamburg, and many others. With EasyPark, you can:

• Enjoy cashless parking in countless busy spots in Europe;
• Avoid fines and extend your parking time with a single tap;
• Easily split personal and job-related parking costs;
• Fast and flawless account registration.

How to Test Apps for Parking: Top Features To Focus On

Any modern parking app requires advanced and careful testing to make sure it will satisfy the needs and expectations of the customers. Below is a list of must-have features any digital product of this kind should have.

Navigation

• Creating a top-notch map of available parking spaces;
• Flawless navigation to the reserved place with the help of GPS coordinates.

Navigation + Booking

• Booking a place on the correct date and time;
• The need to comply with particular parking rules;
• An ability to prolong the parking time if needed;
• Navigating back to the car;
• Receiving notifications if the parking time will soon be over.

Payment

• Ability to use various payment methods;
• Proceeding payments without interruptions;
• Enhanced security of making payments;
• Saving checks and payment history.

User Performance

• Easy sign-in/sign up process;
• Understable navigation and user-friendly interface;
• Flawless interaction with other applications;
• Customizable notifications.

Advanced Availability

• Full support for both iOS and Android
• An opportunity to use an app in different locations;
• App’s performance on various types of smartphones and operating systems.

To put it short, QA experts will need to use a real car to test an application in live conditions. No emulators, virtual machines, or other simulators are needed. The only way to test a modern parking app is to use a real vehicle during testing, as well as drive the streets and parking spots in different locations.
Further, the testers will need to use real payment methods to ensure the cycle is fully completed.

QA professionals should perform different types of testing and provide a screenshot of the exact location using a map app, a picture of the car in the street parking including the street name/number, car details including plate number, and associated phone number.

How Can Ubertesters Help With Testing An Urban Parking App?

Ubertesters, as a leading crowdtesting service, is ready to offer advanced testing solutions to make sure your parking app meets the needed requirements, has brilliant performance, and works well on a wide range of various devices in different locations worldwide.  Further, Ubertesters has a large community of QA experts who own cars and are ready to use them to test urban parking applications ‘in-the-wild’. This is a prerequisite condition and a crucial step in testing this type of digital product. As a result, our clients can receive the results of the tests made in a 100% real environment, and in their actual target market.

Our company has 8+ experience in testing modern digital products and has a top-notch reputation in the field. If you are looking for a reliable partner for effective cooperation, we are ready to offer the highest-quality services to both small startups and big companies.

Ubertesters has a team of experienced managers who will help you handle the entire testing process and receive the most precise testing results within the shortest terms, while the team of dedicated freelance QA experts will make sure your app meets the expectations of your target audience.

So, what can you get when cooperating with Ubertesters?

• An opportunity to test your product on real devices and in real environments;
• Ability to test your parking app under real-life conditions, using testers with real cars, driving around, and using the app just like your real users.
• A large community of certified testers in over 120 countries worldwide;
• A professional and cost-effective testing solution in a fast and easy way;
• Expert help in detecting bugs, crashes, and other issues in your application;
• Advanced and detailed testing reports to allow your development team to fix all the issues in no time;
• All types of testing available, including exploratory, UI, localization, regression, and other types of testing;
• Individual approach to every customer.

Still, these are not all our advantages. Want to get more benefits? Contact us at sales@ubertesters.com for more information.