3 Ways to Mitigate the Risks of Automated Testing
Test automation holds the promise of enormous benefits for improving product and service quality. It applies computational power to what it does best, the repetitive exercise of software systems. And, like any other powerful tool, misusing it is fraught with risk.
Software development has progressed …
Fast Food and the Crowdsourced Software Testing Phenomenon
Crowdsourced usability testing has marketing appeal. They hook you with mentions of the big players…Adobe, Jet, Oracle, and more. On the surface it looks good. You simply sign-up (and pay a fee), submit some questions, and your tests are magically sent to on-demand users who …
Outsourced Software Testing: Friend or Foe?
The standard argument for outsourcing has been done to death. As in, “We all get it. ‘Nuff said.” The term itself originated in the 80’s to describe contracting with external entities to provide “an exchange of services, expertise, and payments”. Outsourcing, in its most basic …
Is Scriptless Test Automation All It’s Cracked Up to Be?
The Agile software development methodology has compressed the traditional months-long software development cycle into days. To support that kind of release speed requires QA testing to be performed concurrently with development, often with test planning done even before the first line of system code is …
How to Write a Software Test Case Like a Pro
Writing software test cases isn’t something to take lightly. Aside from coding and testing your app, writing test cases is the third ingredient to consider in the ‘successful release’ triumvirate. Does this sound like a lot of pressure to place on a task often regarded …
Software Test Design Fundamentals
Whether beginning a completely new software product or adding in features and bug fixes to an existing one, tested verification is the measure of success in the coding process. It is the direct comparison of the intent of the code to its outcome. For this …
Quality Assurance and Quality Control: From the Middle Ages to Now
Quality assurance (QA), quality control (QC), and testing are three words you’ve likely heard. It’s just as likely you’ve heard them used incorrectly. At some point, we’ve all been guilty of using the terms QA, QC, and testing interchangeably to refer to ways of ensuring …
Is Software Testing Dying? No. It’s Just Changing
The Waterfall development methodology has gradually been supplanted by and, to a degree, merged with Agile. The once sacrosanct division between development and testing has been diligently dissolved to accommodate the small development/testing/product management groups that Agile promotes and thrives upon.
A side effect of …
Benefits of Software Testing Based on Use Cases
Ideally, functional testing follows a carefully designed test plan. Those who spend their days in the Agile/Continuous Integration development trenches will doubtless look at the phrase ‘carefully designed test plan’ with understandable skepticism. Modern software development is schedule driven to release new versions with only …
5 Simple Accessibility Tests Everyone Can Do and Why They Aren’t Enough
In the United States, approximately 20% of the population experiences some form of disability and 10 % of cases are considered severe. This equates to three out of every 10 families being affected by disability. You spend time on app design or site SEO to …
Don’t Put Your Virtual Reality Testing in the Hands of a Noob
Twenty years ago, only visionaries could imagine the ways we use digital devices today. Then, we made calls and sent texts. We created alphanumeric emojis and our “cell phones” had a battery life measured in minutes, not hours or days. We played Snake, casually flipping …
Software QA Has Business Value. Treat it Like That.
For many years, the software QA and software development groups were just that, groups. The development engineers were charged with keeping their focus on converting marketing’s product feature lists into working code and integrating that code into working systems that fulfilled the system’s specified functionality.
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