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How Can You Optimize the Cost of Software Testing?

Ways to Reduce the Cost of Software Testing Without Sacrificing Quality

Due to the novel coronavirus and the impact, it’s having on the global economy, my colleagues and I have been thinking a lot these days about how we could help our clients and others find ways to reduce the cost of testing without letting their products’ quality suffer. And dare we say it, maybe even lessen the need of having to let go of valuable team members. In certain cases and many industries, the latter is unavoidable but it’s important to first try to control or optimize costs as much as possible. 

In this post, we’ll share some ways to reduce software testing costs that we have tried and tested firsthand at Abstracta with great results.

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The Ultimate Guide to Shift-left Testing

Introduction

In today's competitive era, the demand to deliver quality software products in a cost and time-effective manner continues to accelerate. To accommodate that need, more and more companies are now incorporating shift-left testing to their product development processes. To help you better understand this methodology, in this article, we will delve into the basic tenets of shift-left testing, its benefits, and how to measure success.

What is Shift-Left Testing?

Shift-left testing comes about to test earlier in the development process. Even with Agile teams breaking away from the traditional Waterfall development model, testing always seems to be the last step.

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3 Remote Work Tips for Software Testing Teams

Yes, making a sharp and unexpected pivot into remote work brings a fair share of complications, no matter what you do for a living. But software testers are facing some unique challenges. Coordinating testing across all the different tools and people involved in the end-to-end quality process was never easy to begin with. But now, many organizations are deploying urgent updates almost instantly — which means testers need to figure out how to test even more efficiently as they negotiate new ways of working.

We wanted to take this opportunity to share some tools and tips that are helping testers within our own teams as well as our customers’ teams. If you have additional ideas, we encourage you to add them in the comments section. Ideally, we’d like to update this post periodically to provide a central reference point for best practices that are adding value across the testing community.

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10 Reasons Your Organization Must Embrace Automated Testing in 2020

With more and more organizations today using DevOps and Agile methodologies to deliver their software projects, there’s now a greater demand than ever for speed and efficiency. As a result, automated testing is becoming necessary for organizations that want to keep up with the pace of modern software delivery.

 In fact, according to a recent study by NASSCOM, a quarter of their respondents have automated between 51% and 75% of their testing processes, demonstrating just how valuable this approach has become for many businesses.

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Creating a Component Test Framework

If you have been reading Martin Fowler's canonical article on the test pyramid, you know that there is a mystical layer that hides between those broad unit tests (the base of the pyramid) and the integration tests layer (near the top). This layer is called: component tests. 

This article is about the following: What are component tests? Why should you care, and how to implement them properly?

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Web Services or Mobile App Testing — The Prioritization Matrices

Web Service and  Mobile App Testing

Generally, we can say that: Web services are packet sized applications that communicate with each other via network but in a precise format. The output of one software used as an input to another reciprocally and the whole process executed with interface language like XML.

Mobile app testing is a strategic approach to detect bugs and fix them before users identify them. It’s evident that scalable and user-friendly applications win the race and gives your product wide recognition. Mobile app testing does it with it’s set of approaches right from installation, the target device and OS, UI/UX usability, functionality, interrupts, data network, hardware, and performance, and many other parameters.

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The Software Engineer in Test and the Developer: Key Differences

A few weeks ago I had some interesting debates on the projects I work on, on questions like:

  • Is the automation engineer a developer?
  • Is a developer the best candidate to be an automation engineer? 
  • Where does the good ol’ Software Engineer in Test (SET, a.k.a SDET) fit in this fierce new world full of code and dependencies? 

It seems that the trend nowadays when looking for job candidates in automation is that they need to have the skills of a programmer. I have been doing technical interviews for people who are running for Test Engineer positions for years, and this trend has been increasing more and more. That is why I give the same advice to anyone asking me how to get into the automation world: “Start learning the fundamental concepts of object-oriented programming and how they apply to automation testing.”

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Exploratory Testing: A Detailed Guide

What Is Exploratory Testing?

In exploratory testing, testers check a system without a plan in mind to discover bugs that users may face when navigating a website or app. It tries to mimic the personal freedom and choices of individual end-users. It is a simultaneous process in which testers go through the software of their own accord to understand the quality of the user experience it provides. 

For example, developers of a shopping website know what it is meant to do. Let users select products of their choice, move it to cart, pay and confirm their order. Exploratory testing helps verify that the system is working as expected, but also that it is an easy and pleasant process for users.

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Best Automated Cross-Browser Testing Tools

What is your favorite browser testing tool?

In this fast-paced software market, companies need to deliver products not just with quality but also at a rapid speed. If you are not providing the product according to customer requirements, then you might end up losing your reputation in the market. With the involvement of Agile practices, it has become highly crucial for organizations to meet the standards of software or web development.

One thing that is more important than a faster delivery of products is the browser compatibility of your business site that visitors use to see your products. If the web app isn’t compatible with the browser standards that people use to access your site, then they might not revisit your site.

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7 Emerging Automated Web Testing Trends to Look Out in 2020

Here's what you can expect from automated testing in 2020

Technology has evolved in multiple forms in the last few years. From development to testing to continuous delivery, we have seen a lot of changes in the IT industry. But, the software testing process has encountered the most positive changes, especially after automation was introduced in the testing process, which made it smooth and easy for testers to test web apps or websites.

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Code Coverage vs Test Coverage — Which Is Better?

Make sure you stay covered!

Test Coverage and Code coverage are the most popular methodologies for measuring the effectiveness of the code. Though these terms are sometimes used interchangeably since their underlying principles are the same. But they are not as similar as you may think.

Many times, I have noticed the testing team and development team being confused over the use of these two terminologies. This is why I thought of coming up with an article to talk about the differences between code coverage and test coverage in detail.

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Upcoming Software Testing Trends in 2020

The projections are in! Check out these testing trends!

The software development landscape continues to evolve with DevOps and Agile development methods taking over traditional approaches. The advent of these methods has led to the innovation and use of new testing techniques. For QA professionals, it becomes crucial to quickly adapt to new changes in the testing domain so that they may become better testers and stay relevant to their industry.

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How to Measure Technical Debt and How to Keep Track of the Progress

Don't drown in technical debt!

Nothing in this world is perfect. Neither is code. Sometimes the pressure to deliver fast results leads to coding shortcuts. Sometimes developers can’t find the right solution immediately and sometimes they are too lazy to do that. One day they misread the requirements, and the other – the requirements are changed in the process. But what does it have in common with the technical debt?

You may also like: Technical Debt: What It Is, Why It's Important, and How to Prioritize It

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What Is Tech Debt and How to Explain It to Non-Technical People?

Technical debt: explained.

Probably anyone who is connected to software development has heard about technical debt. But both salespeople, account managers and probably even CEOs rarely understand what tech debt means, how to measure technical debt, as well as the necessity to pay it. According to Claranet's survey, 48% of 100 IT decision-makers from the UK, say that their non – technical coworkers have no idea about the financial impact of tech debt.

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Complex Functional Testing, Simplified

A different view on functional testing.

How does functional testing with visual assertions help simplify test development for complex real-world apps? Like, say, a retail app with inventory, product details, rotating displays, and shopping carts?

My special blog series discusses Modern Functional Testing with Visual AI, Raja Rao’s course on Test Automation University. I arrived at Chapter 6 – E-Commerce Real World Example. In this review, I hope to give you an overview of Raja’s examples and how they might apply to your test challenges.

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13 Ways For Your Functional Testers To Do More Than Just ‘Testing’

Thirteen reasons why you should do more than just test.


Functional testing of a web application or a website is one of the most essential phases of the SDLC. Providing a scalable infrastructure for cross-browser testing on the cloud, we realize that offering a SaaS platform to our audience with even with a minor bug may lead to a devastating outcome, and not only for us, but also for our customers.

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Top Testing Types to Use in Automation Testing

Planning automated tests.

For any organization, the overall testing culture is influenced by the prevailing testing approach, apart from how they envision the test automation and how are they planning to collaborate beyond the development teams. Establishing test automation in an organization is not your conventional practice and that is why you would want to learn the best approaches possible.

This means retrospecting the current process, finalizing and deciding the new test approach as well as determining the level of testing, roles, and responsibilities of the team members.