Projects of any and all complexities benefit from proper software testing, and there simply isn’t enough reason for a tester to skip software testing altogether.
A tester needs to spend their limited time and resources in performing software tests that would be beneficial to a project at hand. They need to choose their tests wisely and have them done to ensure security, cost-efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction. But how should a tester choose a test to run?
Here are the top 5 tests that a tester needs to do in order to help secure the success of projects of any complexity:
5. Security Testing
Since the beginning of the information age, security and privacy have always been many people’s concern. The fact that cybercrime is an international multi-trillion dollar problem doesn’t help this at all.
People tend to use apps and programs less when they feel that their information is at risk of falling into the wrong hands. Moreover, vulnerabilities that put the security and privacy of a customer’s information at risk can be legal liabilities. The responsibility of making sure that data is protected and that only authorized use and access for that data is allowed falls into a security tester’s hand.
4. Performance Testing
Performance testing is a mix of different types of tests that ensure software like web-based and desktop applications perform as they’re supposed to. It allows a tester to verify that fundamental features are working as they should. This type of testing also allows testers to find flaws in the design, and helps a tester figure out which can still be optimized when it comes to speed, stability, and accuracy.
3. Functional Testing
Testers should never skip on functional testing because this test can definitively decide whether a release is a success or not. However, many testers aren’t given enough time for proper testing, especially in agile development teams. Release dates nowadays are far more important, and the decision to test at a later time is something that many teams grab at the first opportunity.
2. Usability Testing
While user acceptance testing is just a question of whether or not certain user inputs successfully result in system outputs, usability testing helps determine whether software apps or programs are usable in real-life situations. It helps determine if the application performs everything that it needs to perform in the way that its users are expecting it to do so.
While it could take a bit of time to successfully conduct usability tests, it gives testers and developers an unparalleled insight as to how a user expects the application to function from an outsider’s POV. And though this isn’t probably a test that testers are expected to perform for every release, it’s definitely a test that would help developers provide a better user experience and increase user satisfaction.
1. Cloud Testing
Cloud-based testing is one of the newer ways to perform software testing, birthed out of the need for reducing testing expenses and increasing scalability. It’s a practical way of testing software without the need to upgrade any physical resource, and it basically offers testing as a service. More importantly, perhaps, cloud-based testing is a way to perform different types of software tests using virtually unlimited resources.
Powerful cloud computing and testing capabilities can open up a great deal of possibilities for testers. A cloud testing company will be able to simulate and even recreate traffic to determine the performance of a program, website, or app. A tester would be able to customize tests and perform them under different scenarios with cloud tools. Companies that provide these cloud testing services can significantly help testers to reduce testing times and companies to cut down on testing costs.
Final thoughts
The advent of cloud-based testing is an answered prayer for small to large-scale businesses. The flexibility that it can provide in return for comparably reduced costs means a great deal to testers and companies both. There’s a wide range of cloud-based testing tools and there’s a good variety of tests that can be done with the help of cloud computing. Learning how to perform these tests on and off the cloud is a skill any tester should aim to have.
