5 Best Practices to Follow When Testing an Application

One thing that is often not even considered by developers and in fact quite under-estimated is testing. However, it is a key element in any application development; without this pillar no developer can put the developed software or application on market. Through proper evaluation the quality is determined which in turn consists of several dimensions like features, adjustability as well as engineering.

There are several kinds of tests that are carried out to determine the quality such as platform compatibility tests, functional tests, usability tests, scalability tests, performance tests, robustness tests, etc. One thing that must be remembered in this respect is to assign the job to an actual specific tester with distinct test roles; here the role of a developer and a tester is poles apart. While testing, to yield the best possible results here are some practices that you must follow.

1. Planning ahead- When a software or application is being tested, the undertaking is important as well as costly which might require careful execution. For that purpose it always helps if as a tester you can plan ahead. A careful planning as well as execution ahead of the evaluation phase ensures the success as well as usefulness of tests. In the planning phase you must consider the five essential steps which are establishing baselines, establishing expectations as well as goals, understanding the challenges that might come with the evaluation procedure, getting ample help as well opinions from the client, operations as well as development team and early involvement of third parties.

2. Building a solid strategy for application evaluation- Building a solid strategy ensures that the best procedures are followed from the word go. For effective strategies you must include exploratory, automated as well as manual tests so that the risks can be reduced efficiently and release cycles tightened. In this respect there are three kinds of test approaches that can be followed- integration which exercises entire subsystems while ensuring that sets of components fit as well as interact nicely; unit which helps in validating of the system’s smallest components so that known outputs and inputs can be handled correctly; and functional that helps in verification of end-to-end scenarios which might engage your users. In essence, functional tests can affect the entire system, but still unit as well as integration testing is important due to recovery speed as well as test performance. Functional test is always slow in running too.

3. Staggering the user number- Applications have to support a large number of users at the same time; so one of the scenarios to consider is its performance capability when handling a load due to a vast number of users. The best way of analyzing this properly is to increase the number in an ascending manner. If you start all the test drivers simultaneously then the results might not be very accurate since some time should be given to the system so that it can warm up a bit and prepare for a heavy load.

4. Experienced as well as informed management- Experience certainly counts a big deal, especially for something as crucial as evaluation it is best to go with experience. On top of that the management must ensure that all tiers involved with the application are informed about its aspects so that the best possible solution and insights are achieved.

5. Including early feedback- This starts in the development process itself where test engineers can be included. They can provide feedback on the sustainable development, feature scope too as architecture which can lead to an all-round well developed application.

These days, a software project is far more complex that what it used to be even sometime back. With the rapid changes in the methods and procedures, it is best to keep an open eye and establish some ground rules before beginning any work. The same is applicable for testing too since knowing what to do and what to avoid will help in the long run. When you hire testing software 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 application testing services. All of our testers have cleared industry certifications in testing. If you would like to hire software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.