Software testing as an afterthought has been a little passe’. In fact, most of the time it was being ignored by businesses thoroughly due to restraints in time and budget. Whether you are developing an application for the retail industry or healthcare sector, telecom industry or finance industry, undergoing the software testing procedures prior to its release has become a must. Ignoring this means you might end up losing everything eventually.

Software testing, quality assurance isn’t a new phrase! I mean those who have been in the software development realm know it's a staple part of the entire software development life cycle. After the pandemic, the insane pressure of offering amazing customer experiences and that too in a short time is increasing day in day out. Everyone seems to be craving for creating a software development project that turns out to be a quicker turnaround for any and every business.

Earlier, people including both businesses as well as software development organizations used to follow quantity over quality. Fortunately, that’s certainly not the case anymore! The last-minute box-ticking exercise is no more in demand as poor quality assurance can result in unhappy customers. The following post gives insights on what are the best software testing practices to consider. However, before that let us brush through the basics of software testing.

Software Testing

So what is meant by software testing? Well, in layman’s terms it is a sure shot method to test whether the developed product has met its predetermined requirements, industry standards, compliances. In addition to this, software testing also ensures that the software application developed is defect-free. The ultimate objective of software testing is to find relevant errors, gaps or missing requirements. Now errors, bugs and issues are pretty inevitable, no matter how precisely you tend to code. And, here software testing comes to play!

I have come across many of you who even today tend to skip the software testing process just because it involves a huge cut off but the less they know that the price which they might owe to the failure might be way higher than the software testing cost. Here are some of the core benefits offered by Software testing procedures.

Benefits of considering Software Testing

#1 Saves ample money - One of the obvious yet crucial benefits of considering software testing services is that you can save ample amounts of money. Since the software application released will be a sure-shot success, without any current or potential errors or bugs. You may find this costly in the beginning but if you take a look at the entire procedure, then you can see how cost-effective the entire process is. It’s about taking the bird-eye view or looking at the whole picture. Just make sure you hire some of the skilled and well-experienced software testers or quality analysts.

#2 High-end security - Another attention-grabbing benefit of using software testing services is that here high-end security can be availed. Today security breaches are increasing at a fanatic pace. And there is no point in releasing a software that is vulnerable or sensitive because one bad situation and tons of data and information can be stolen or misused in no time. Now this is why businesses are considering well-tested and reliable software applications.

#3 Quality does matter - The next benefit offered by hiring software testing service providers is that you are bound to receive amazing quality. Of course, every product development needs a seamless ideation and an efficient execution. Software testing ensures getting prerequisite results. After all, it’s all about serving the end user in one way or the other.

• Does it bring value?
• Is it highly compatible with different devices?
• Does it offer satisfactory results?

Let me explain this by an example, let’s say you are using a banking application to transfer money. Now what happens is, you initiate the transaction from your end, the amount gets deducted and even receive the message stating that the transaction was successful. Now the issue arises when the friend says he hasn’t received the money yet. And you haven’t received a reversed transaction or the amount isn’t credited yet. So as a customer you might end up switching to the competitor application. Now the reason why such a glitch happened is because the application wasn’t tested thoroughly before the release and led to loss of existing customers. For better experience, software testing is mandatory.

Types of Software Testing

• Acceptance Testing - How is the developed software working as a whole?
• Integration Testing - Do all the incorporated software components work in sync?
• Performance Testing - As the name implies, this type of software testing focuses on how the software application performs under different situations and scenarios.
• Stress Testing - How much load or strain the development application can take? Also, at what point does it fail?
• Regression Testing - Any feature that might not work or degrade eventually.
• Usability Testing - Can the end users use the application seamlessly?
• Functional Testing - Black-box testing is preferred to keep tabs on all the incorporated functions.
• Unit Testing - The software units perform seamlessly and effectively.

Best Software Testing Practices

Enough said about the importance of software testing. It’s time to show how it is supposed to be conducted successfully. Here are some of the best software testing practices to take into account especially for 2023.

1. Secured Test Environment is a must

One of the best ways to conduct software testing projects is by offering a highly safe and secure test environment. Unfortunately, many of you have this misconception that working on cloud means you are bound to receive a pretty safe and secure environment, which is certainly not the case. Even clouds have a wide range of vulnerabilities. In fact, most of the products which are deployed in the cloud are provided as SAAS where vulnerabilities or bugs can be discovered only by the end users. So the best way of dealing with such a situation here is to invest in a secured testing environment. By doing so you can avoid a wide range of pitfalls, issues and defects.

2. Incorporating testing right from the development stage

Another best practice to take into account is to incorporate testing right from the development stage and not afterwards. There was a time when software testing services were incorporated at a much later stage and the entire development process was repeated again and again. Unlike those old times, today's shift-left strategy is the key to success. Why so?

• Bugs are revealed in the least time possible
• Aligned well with agile development methodologies
• Increased coverage

For better results, it is very crucial to test early and often. In addition, it may quite interest you to know that automating testing can offer a wide range of benefits.

3. Test it right!

Another significant best practice to consider for software testing is you need to test it in the right manner. For example, testing should be conducted from a well-documented precedure. Every single detail in regards to observations or progress must be recorded right then and there. The test report becomes blunder when it can be misinterpreted. So how to avoid these aspects and come up with a clear test report?

• Incorporating different screen shots or screen videos of bugs
• It should be described clearly how functions must work
• Incorporate best possible solutions for fixing bugs

In addition to well-documenting the procedure, software testing has to be conducted on real devices. By doing so, software developers can easily spot errors and fix them right before the launch of the system. And above all, ask your software testing team to distribute the tasks in accordance to their skills. For example, ensure that the role of writing scripts is given to the one who carries immense knowledge and expertise in scripting languages. Ask your non-techie members to prepare the keyword-driven tests.