Social Media App Testing Checklist (2026)

Social apps are messy. They combine real-time feeds, media uploads, infinite scroll, notifications, search, content moderation, monetization, and sometimes live video. Each subsystem fails in its own

Social apps are messy. They combine real-time feeds, media uploads, infinite scroll, notifications, search, content moderation, monetization, and sometimes live video. Each subsystem fails in its own way. This checklist is what I walk through before shipping a social release.

Why social is hard

• Scale. Features that work for 100 users break at 100 million.
• Real-time. Feeds, notifications, presence, typing indicators. Every lag is visible.
• Media. Photos, videos, audio — each with upload, transcode, delivery, and caching concerns.
• Abuse vectors. Every text field, every upload, every API is a potential attack surface.

Feed

1. Pull-to-refresh works and loads new content
2. Infinite scroll adds pages, does not leak memory
3. Scroll position preserved after returning from detail view
4. "Load new posts" banner appears when fresh content available
5. Feed sort order stable (no jumping when items insert)
6. Posts from blocked users not shown
7. Hidden / muted posts do not reappear on refresh
8. Offline cached feed visible with "cached" indicator

Post creation

1. Text input handles emoji, RTL, newlines correctly
2. Image attachment — single and multiple
3. Video attachment — respects duration limit, compresses, shows progress
4. Upload resumable after network interruption
5. Draft saved if user backgrounds mid-compose
6. Post button disables during upload (no dup posts)
7. Character limit enforced, counter visible
8. Link unfurls preview in compose view

Interactions

1. Like — optimistic UI, reverts on server failure
2. Comment — threaded display, reply chains correct
3. Share — respects privacy settings
4. Save / bookmark — syncs across devices
5. Long-press menu shows appropriate actions (copy, report, hide)

Notifications

1. Push notifications fire for real interactions only (likes from bots filtered)
2. Notification grouping correct (3 people liked your post, not 3 notifications)
3. Notification tap opens the right screen
4. Badge count matches notification center
5. Read state syncs across devices

Direct messages

1. Messages deliver in order
2. Typing indicator accurate
3. Read receipts respect privacy setting
4. Image and video share works, with preview
5. Offline messages queue, send on reconnect
6. End-to-end encryption (if claimed) actually encrypts client-side
7. Unread count correct across conversations
8. Message deletion behavior clear (delete for me vs for everyone)

Profile

1. Profile photo upload, crop, apply immediately
2. Bio edits save reliably
3. Privacy settings applied immediately (public → private changes visibility)
4. Blocked users list persists across sessions
5. Deleted account removes content within stated SLA

Search

1. Search-as-you-type with debounce
2. Recent searches saved, can be cleared
3. Search filters (people, posts, hashtags) functional
4. No results state helpful (not blank)
5. Search respects privacy (private accounts not indexed)

Media delivery

1. Videos preload in feed (tap to expand plays inline)
2. Audio player handles background playback
3. Live stream connects reliably, shows ping/quality
4. Stories / disappearing content actually disappears server-side after TTL

Privacy and safety

1. Account can be made private, effect immediate
2. Block user — all interactions severed
3. Report content flow — reaches moderation queue
4. Minor-account detection and protections (if applicable)
5. Screenshot detection for ephemeral content (platform allows)
6. Two-factor auth available and defaulted for high-risk accounts

Performance

1. Feed scrolls at 60fps on mid-tier devices
2. Cold start under 2 seconds on 2023 mid-tier phone
3. Memory usage does not grow past 400MB during normal session
4. Battery drain < 3%/hour during typical use

Accessibility

1. Screen reader navigates feed in logical order
2. Alt text on images (user-provided and auto-generated)
3. Captions on videos (auto or manual)
4. Dynamic type respected up to 200%
5. Captions and transcripts on live/recorded audio

Edge cases

1. Cold start with pending likes from push notifications (process all)
2. Account deletion mid-feed-scroll (graceful handling)
3. Very long comment threads (1000+ replies) paginate correctly
4. Rapid scrolling past video content (auto-pause to save data)
5. Locale change (English to Arabic RTL) — feed re-lays out

How SUSA tests social apps

SUSA's personas cover the diversity of social users: teenager (fast, explorative, edge-case content), impatient (hates lag), accessibility_user (TalkBack + large text), adversarial (reports bugs, tries injection). Flow tracking catches broken compose, broken DM, broken notifications. Network intelligence flags slow feed APIs, oversized responses, chatty endpoints draining battery.

susatest-agent test social.apk --persona teenager --steps 200
susatest-agent test social.apk --persona accessibility_user

Expect to find: dead FAB on compose screen, broken link unfurl on certain URL patterns, read-receipt sync delay, feed jumping on refresh, search-as-you-type flicker, notification badge mismatch. These are the bugs SUSA typically surfaces on the first exploration pass.