Testing Techniques and Tips for Improving Software Testing Quality

One of the main reasons for the failures of software development companies is really poor QA processes in the development life cycles. Different mistakes in the development life cycle can lead to big financial losses. So software testing quality is really important for your business.

The way to create high-quality software is to implement effective quality management, which provides tools and methodologies for creating bug-free products. But simply increasing the amount of human resources and efforts you can barely solve the problem without the right strategy.

Today we're happy to present you with some professional recommendations based on the wide experience of our software engineers working with numerous industries. Let’s look at the infographic with the basic testing techniques and tips to make the software testing process as high-quality as possible. You can find the full text with an additional description below it.

Now let's take a closer look at what each step means in practice.

Make QA a priority

Test-oriented management approaches are a good way to improve the software testing quality of your end product. Making QA a priority in your company means managing quality, experimenting with new ideas, and changing the testing methods and metrics used where necessary. QA should affect the entire workflow, not just the last few steps before releases.

Plan Testing Processes

Develop a detailed testing strategy. Identify the features to be tested first and strive to avoid unnecessary software product testing. Testing processes should be well-planned, defined, and documented. Good documentation is a tool that builds effective communication within the software development team. The main types of documentation that support the QA process are:

• Test policy;
• Quality management plan;
• Test strategy;
• Test plan;
• Test cases.

Use a Shift-Left Approach

Test as early and as often as possible. The left-shift approach to testing reflects this idea and involves testing activities from the very beginning of the development process, instead of making it the final step, as traditional methodologies usually assume. Be sure to test the requirements to find potential problems and get a higher ROI. Remember that fixing bugs at the release stage can cost you a lot more.

The shift-right strategy also exists and implies post-production testing of a fully created product. This includes getting feedback from real end users and improving quality based on those reviews.

Encourage Communication

Clear communication with all team members is an integral part of the software testing quality improvement process. You need a good team leader who can effectively share feedback and ideas with the testing team and encourage team members to discuss existing problems and other issues that may affect productivity and effectiveness. A retrospective meeting held by the entire development team at the end of each iteration of the sprint is one of the ways to discuss achievements, problems, and plans for further work.

Having consistent Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) throughout the project and providing accurate test reports helps in communication. Your team members should be ready and motivated to share knowledge and feedback.

Implement Automated Testing

If you really want to improve the quality in software testing, then it is definitely worth taking into account automated testing or the use of automation tools to run tests. Automate as much as possible. But make sure that you rewrite the test scripts in accordance with the new changes in the product.

Companies are prioritizing moving from manual to automated testing as quickly as possible and that’s why moving to automated testing is the top priority around software testing (30% of companies mention it as the top priority). Test automation saves time, reduces the number of human errors, improves testing coverage and test capabilities, performs batch testing and parallel execution. There is a wide variety of automated testing tools, but creating scripts for automated tests still takes time and effort.

While automated testing can be used within traditional Agile workflows, it is also part of DevOps methodology and CI/CD practices.

Reduce Manual Testing

Optimize manual testing. In the short term, it is cheaper and can be used in a variety of cases due to its flexibility, but it may be less accurate and error-prone due to the human factor.

To reduce testing costs, you should strive to use manual testing only for those functions that cannot be automated. For example, preliminary testing is conducted to study user experience. In most cases, this does not require scripting and relies on the intuition and creativity of a testing specialist. Thus, you cannot write off manual testing, but you can effectively combine it with an automation approach.

Report Bugs Effectively

Bug reporting helps make software testing efficient and identifies the problem at its early stages. Bug reports must be the basis of good communication between testers and developers. A badly written report can lead not only to misunderstanding but also to new bugs appearing.

Use the latest tools to increase productivity, but provide your teams with tools only after studying all their shortcomings and advantages.​​

A good bug report will help make software testing more efficient by clearly identifying the problem and thus directing software engineers to solve it. This should be the basis and an effective form of communication between the quality control specialist and the developer. A poorly written report can lead to a serious misunderstanding. Here are recommendations for effective error reporting:

• Reproduce a bug before reporting it.
• Address only one problem per task.
• Include screenshots or recordings.
• Consider adding a bug summary.
• Provide solutions if possible.

Encourage Innovations

It is important that there are clear testing structures, documentation and quality metrics, and KPIs, but there should always be room for innovation. Give teams the opportunity to constantly explore, experiment, and conduct research. Also, make sure that achievements in innovation are properly rewarded.

Simply copying your competitor’s growth strategy or techniques is not enough. People want to be “different”, and you will stand out if you create a unique software product that others will not be able to reproduce. Automate repetitive tasks to free up time for high-level tasks. And believe that your team is able to provide projects with a competitive advantage over business rivals.

Conclusion

No matter how simple or complex your software product is, you should never compromise on testing. Improving the quality in software testing will have the greatest overall impact on your business and its financial performance. When managing your work processes don’t save on testing, as the cost of mistakes may be too high. Following the steps mentioned in this article will help you optimize your testing budget and testing processes without putting your business at risk.

Therefore, your quality test strategy should cover all key aspects: prioritization, planning, continuous approach, reporting, automation, reducing costs, encouraging communication, and innovation. Contact us to learn more about integrating DogQ no-code automated testing tool with your software testing processes. And feel free to just try our testing platform.