Software testing (ST) is an intricate process and asks for professionals who are highly expert as well as experienced. Even then, they cannot always avoid some technical as well as silly mistakes that spoil their days. That is the reason it is imperative that they follow a specific methodology in order to avoid these mistakes as much as possible. Let us discuss some of the errors that the software professionals normally end up committing. This will perhaps help them to be aware of these mistakes.
1) Using Element of Surprise: At times, technicians or testers are too much enthusiastic to take certain decisions without prior planning with a view to impart an element of surprise and yield the best results almost overnight. They also surprise the team with fresh mandates without any proper planning and go on with a dubious budget. This, to say the least, does not work. On the contrary, it puts the entire scrutiny program in a sort of jeopardy, thereby extending the deadline and shooting up the budget of the client. There is an old saying,“Surprise your team and watch it melt!”
2) Waiting till designing the software is finished: There are a lot of technicians who do not start the scrutiny till the fag end of the application development lifecycle. This is a very serious mistake as this may surprise them with a lot of unpleasant issues that will crop up at the eleventh hour.
3) Run the tests from a single location: This is another common error that software professionals end up doing. You will find a number of professionals conducting performance tests from within firewall mostly because of budget constraints as well as other technical reasons. However, the problem in this kind of ST is that by doing this the testers are unable to gauge the performance of the application and hence are unable to ascertain the performance when the application is used in real world.
4) Using not enough hardcoded data: It is relatively easier to test an application by using a smaller amount of static and hardcoded data. However, the problem is, when you do that it does not give you the right idea of performance that you can expect from the application once it goes live.
5) Testing with the ones who are not experts: In real life scenario, each and every ST assignment generally involves two kinds of experts – testing experts and domain experts. The testing experts are excellent in understanding and picking up the flaws as well as the vulnerabilities, irrespective of the nature of the product. Domain experts mainly pick up the shortcomings and inconsistencies but cannot spot the flaws. However, there are many companies that put the entire responsibility of testing on these domain experts. Do not be like them as this will not yield the best results.
6) Focusing on single use cases: There are ST teams that wash their hands off after testing a single use case while evaluating the performance. This will invariably put the application into troubled waters when it is live as it will not give the testers the true picture of its abilities in real life scenarios.
7) Not doing the BDD: Majority of the STs are technical instead of being functional. However, experts are of the opinion that it is extremely important to test the logical behaviour instead of testing and seeing whether the technical aspects are working flawlessly. This can be conducted with the use of BDD or Behavior Driven Design, without which, application testing remains more or less incomplete.
8) Testing in dbUnit XML dataset: This is another error that the developers end up doing. Often they are seen providing the test data in dbUNit XML dataset. This particular type of data does not represent live data at all. So it is wiser to ask the functional people to provide or maintain this type of test data.
9: Misinterpretation of the QA Role: This is another very common misconception that people have. They end up thinking that it is the responsibility of the testing team to ensure the quality of the application. This, to say the least, is wrong. The testing team only tests the ability of the software in real life scenario. The quality should be taken care of by the QA (Quality Assurance) team after the application passes through the testing barrier.
10) Improper Bug Reporting: Last but not the least, poor or improper bug reporting is a terrible mistake that leads to a lot of unpleasant scenarios. Picking up bugs is not enough – you need to be expert in properly reporting about your findings to the development team so that they can be taken care of appropriately and timely.
There are other mistakes as well when it comes to application testing. It is a highly technical task and there's no wonder that it will involve a lot of technical mistakes. However, we have discussed only 10 of them that normally plague the testing of applications. Mistakes can be kept at bay with use of some common sense and a logical approach and these are the qualities that are expected from a software application testing team. When you hire software testing companies, you must ensure that the team has proven experience in handling medium and large sized testing projects over a long period.
We provide software testing services. If you would like to get your application tested by our certified software testers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.
2) Waiting till designing the software is finished: There are a lot of technicians who do not start the scrutiny till the fag end of the application development lifecycle. This is a very serious mistake as this may surprise them with a lot of unpleasant issues that will crop up at the eleventh hour.
3) Run the tests from a single location: This is another common error that software professionals end up doing. You will find a number of professionals conducting performance tests from within firewall mostly because of budget constraints as well as other technical reasons. However, the problem in this kind of ST is that by doing this the testers are unable to gauge the performance of the application and hence are unable to ascertain the performance when the application is used in real world.
4) Using not enough hardcoded data: It is relatively easier to test an application by using a smaller amount of static and hardcoded data. However, the problem is, when you do that it does not give you the right idea of performance that you can expect from the application once it goes live.
5) Testing with the ones who are not experts: In real life scenario, each and every ST assignment generally involves two kinds of experts – testing experts and domain experts. The testing experts are excellent in understanding and picking up the flaws as well as the vulnerabilities, irrespective of the nature of the product. Domain experts mainly pick up the shortcomings and inconsistencies but cannot spot the flaws. However, there are many companies that put the entire responsibility of testing on these domain experts. Do not be like them as this will not yield the best results.
6) Focusing on single use cases: There are ST teams that wash their hands off after testing a single use case while evaluating the performance. This will invariably put the application into troubled waters when it is live as it will not give the testers the true picture of its abilities in real life scenarios.
7) Not doing the BDD: Majority of the STs are technical instead of being functional. However, experts are of the opinion that it is extremely important to test the logical behaviour instead of testing and seeing whether the technical aspects are working flawlessly. This can be conducted with the use of BDD or Behavior Driven Design, without which, application testing remains more or less incomplete.
8) Testing in dbUnit XML dataset: This is another error that the developers end up doing. Often they are seen providing the test data in dbUNit XML dataset. This particular type of data does not represent live data at all. So it is wiser to ask the functional people to provide or maintain this type of test data.
9: Misinterpretation of the QA Role: This is another very common misconception that people have. They end up thinking that it is the responsibility of the testing team to ensure the quality of the application. This, to say the least, is wrong. The testing team only tests the ability of the software in real life scenario. The quality should be taken care of by the QA (Quality Assurance) team after the application passes through the testing barrier.
10) Improper Bug Reporting: Last but not the least, poor or improper bug reporting is a terrible mistake that leads to a lot of unpleasant scenarios. Picking up bugs is not enough – you need to be expert in properly reporting about your findings to the development team so that they can be taken care of appropriately and timely.
There are other mistakes as well when it comes to application testing. It is a highly technical task and there's no wonder that it will involve a lot of technical mistakes. However, we have discussed only 10 of them that normally plague the testing of applications. Mistakes can be kept at bay with use of some common sense and a logical approach and these are the qualities that are expected from a software application testing team. When you hire software testing companies, you must ensure that the team has proven experience in handling medium and large sized testing projects over a long period.
We provide software testing services. If you would like to get your application tested by our certified software testers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.
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