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How to Leverage Exploratory Testing to Uncover Bugs

Rob Mason
Applause

Development teams so often find themselves rushing to get a release out on time. When it comes time for testing, the software works fine in the lab. But, when it's released, customers report a bunch of bugs. How does this happen? Why weren't the flaws found in QA?

Welcome to defect fatigue, a common issue that occurs when testers execute the same repetitive automated and manual tests and as a result, skip over or miss defects. Testers need to get creative and investigative to find these well-hidden defects before they slip past QA and into the hands of customers.

Be an Investigator and Break Things

The purpose of exploratory testing is to find defects by breaking application functionality using manual and automated techniques without repetition. The "without repetition" piece is key, and the idea is that teams test to break, rather than confirm. Testers should manipulate connectivity, security, configuration settings, and different user navigation, among others. Other techniques include:

■ creating mind maps to find testing areas to investigate

■ forcing the application to function outside the known paths

■ triggering unexpected errors to discover missing error messaging paths

■ exercising back-end processing and third-party software integrations to see what can be interrupted or failed by unexpected user actions

If an application supports different user roles, testing should be done from these different perspectives and with their respective settings. Testers can also utilize existing browser development tools to find errors that are not always visible in the application UI, and to test and edit to see how the application responds.

Consider the People Element

Testers are also people that use applications every day. They should draw on their own personal experiences with typical application defects to try and break functionality. They should also consider the habits and behaviors of the members of the software development team.

As developers and product managers work more with an application over time, they start to develop habits that may influence how they interact with the software. For example, some developers may only develop code on a local machine while others may only do code reviews instead of pre-testing in a test environment. These are work habits that can lead to defects. On the product side, many product managers habitually create user stories and requirements in the same way, unintentionally leaving out a relevant workflow or configuration setting.

Finding hidden defects requires testing against the grain rather than verifying a function performs as expected. It also requires testing all possible paths that customers might take. Crowdtesting can supplement existing techniques by using real people to serve as proxies for customers. They can test for quality, user-experience and functionality outside the lab, and provide instant, useful feedback.

Testing repeatedly only to have bugs unearthed later by customers is a frustrating and potentially costly endeavor. When testers mix existing techniques with creativity and an understanding of human behavior, they will be able to dig deeper to find bugs and friction points that ultimately improve quality and customer experience before release.

Rob Mason is CTO of Applause

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How to Leverage Exploratory Testing to Uncover Bugs

Rob Mason
Applause

Development teams so often find themselves rushing to get a release out on time. When it comes time for testing, the software works fine in the lab. But, when it's released, customers report a bunch of bugs. How does this happen? Why weren't the flaws found in QA?

Welcome to defect fatigue, a common issue that occurs when testers execute the same repetitive automated and manual tests and as a result, skip over or miss defects. Testers need to get creative and investigative to find these well-hidden defects before they slip past QA and into the hands of customers.

Be an Investigator and Break Things

The purpose of exploratory testing is to find defects by breaking application functionality using manual and automated techniques without repetition. The "without repetition" piece is key, and the idea is that teams test to break, rather than confirm. Testers should manipulate connectivity, security, configuration settings, and different user navigation, among others. Other techniques include:

■ creating mind maps to find testing areas to investigate

■ forcing the application to function outside the known paths

■ triggering unexpected errors to discover missing error messaging paths

■ exercising back-end processing and third-party software integrations to see what can be interrupted or failed by unexpected user actions

If an application supports different user roles, testing should be done from these different perspectives and with their respective settings. Testers can also utilize existing browser development tools to find errors that are not always visible in the application UI, and to test and edit to see how the application responds.

Consider the People Element

Testers are also people that use applications every day. They should draw on their own personal experiences with typical application defects to try and break functionality. They should also consider the habits and behaviors of the members of the software development team.

As developers and product managers work more with an application over time, they start to develop habits that may influence how they interact with the software. For example, some developers may only develop code on a local machine while others may only do code reviews instead of pre-testing in a test environment. These are work habits that can lead to defects. On the product side, many product managers habitually create user stories and requirements in the same way, unintentionally leaving out a relevant workflow or configuration setting.

Finding hidden defects requires testing against the grain rather than verifying a function performs as expected. It also requires testing all possible paths that customers might take. Crowdtesting can supplement existing techniques by using real people to serve as proxies for customers. They can test for quality, user-experience and functionality outside the lab, and provide instant, useful feedback.

Testing repeatedly only to have bugs unearthed later by customers is a frustrating and potentially costly endeavor. When testers mix existing techniques with creativity and an understanding of human behavior, they will be able to dig deeper to find bugs and friction points that ultimately improve quality and customer experience before release.

Rob Mason is CTO of Applause

Hot Topics

The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

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A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

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