What are the Challenges in Software Testing and Their Solutions

  

software-testing-challenges-solutions

Quality assurance has become the cornerstone of software development and deployment. And it can be attained only through rigorous software testing. From performance optimization to fixing security loopholes, ensuring client satisfaction to upgrading quality - the benefits of software testing are undeniable.

With advancements in technologies, software testing trends are rapidly evolving. It can be overwhelming for the QA teams to follow the best practices and maintain accuracy in testing. This blog will outline several challenges faced by the professionals at any software testing company and also highlight the solutions. 

Top 4 Challenges of Software Testing and their Solutions

#1 Inadequate Testing Tools 

Tools play a crucial role in QA software testing. The testing team needs to find a balance between quality and quantity when it comes to testing software. Outdated testing tools fail to provide a balance between the two. Usually, such tools turn out to be inadequate in automating tests at a large scale and also limit concurrent test sessions. As a result, the test execution process becomes slow. 

Very often, automation testers seek to find a solution to such an issue by developing new frameworks or utilities. And this gives rise to two other problems: 

  • Resources get diverted from actual testing to improving tools 
  • In turn, time-sensitive projects deeply suffer

·         Solution 

The experts of software quality assurance services recommend parallel app testing as it can significantly reduce the total testing time. The developers can perform unit tests, Continuous Integration (CI), etc. without waiting for a compatibility test to complete. Limited device concurrency or sequential testing cannot deliver the same efficiency. 

#2 Test Data Management

The Continuous Testing Report of 2020 finds that about 44% of the QA team’s testing time is spent on Test Data Management (TDM) activities. This underlines the significance of test data management in increasing overall efficiency. Several challenges are associated with it including the following: 

  • Limited access to the production system 
  • Extracting test data available across multiple databases 
  • Maintaining multiple dataset versions for various tests 

Solution 

To streamline the entire process, it’s crucial to revise the test data management practices. Introducing automation in the test data generation process and using various TDM tools can turn out to be effective. Also, synthetic data creation can be an ideal option to comply with data privacy regulations. 

Further, QA testing providers should also focus on creating comprehensive documentation right from the beginning. It will serve as a baseline throughout the project lifecycle.

#3 A Wide Array of Testing Environment 

These days, applications are accessed from a wide range of browsers, devices, and platforms. Therefore, developers seek to build robust applications that can seamlessly perform across all the combinations. However, with lots of devices rolling out, it’s challenging to test the robustness of the applications on every device. 

Initially, testing on simulators and emulators was a common practice but they could not ensure the software performance in a real-user environment. Real-time bugs can be detected and fixed when software is tested on specific devices. However, setting up on-premise device labs may not be feasible for a small or medium-sized company.

Solution 

These days, the experts at any premier software testing company rely on cloud-based testing platforms. A real device cloud allows professionals to select from a wide array of browsers and devices for testing applications. Cloud also offers integration with the latest automation tools and frameworks to facilitate exhaustive software testing in real environments. 

#4 Improper Analysis of the Test Results 

This is perhaps the worst possible challenge in software testing. Failing to analyze the results properly will never resolve performance glitches. It will direct resources and time in the wrong direction without any gain. 

Solution 

It’s crucial to set priorities and understand the business logic behind the software. Seasoned engineers with keen insights into the product architecture and workflows should monitor the entire process.  

Diligent software quality assurance experts implement their knowledge of the application architecture, networking concepts, data structure, OS concepts, server-side and client-side performance concepts, and OSI (Open System Interconnection) model to efficiently analyze the test results. 

Closing Thoughts 

In today’s competitive digital landscape where enhancing user experience is the ultimate aim, software testing is of paramount importance. No wonder that businesses seek to engage professional software quality assurance services to maintain their reputation and increase demand in the market. The respective solutions to the most critical challenges mentioned above will help testers to streamline their activities and offer the best possible solutions to the clients. 

Resource

James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies. I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality that yields strong results and always happy to create valuable content & share thoughts.

Article Source: medium.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Discuss Test Orchestration and its Role in Achieving Optimal Quality of Software

Image
  In the DevOps approach of developing, testing, and delivering software applications, there is a need to accelerate testing within the constraints of budget and time. This entails automating the testing process as part of the testing strategy. In many cases, continuous test automation is often considered as a discrete step in the build pipeline rather than a sequence of steps. For any continuous testing strategy, all software applications need to pass through a series of tests before they pass muster in the crucible of quality. These may include unit testing, integration testing, functional testing, smoke testing, performance testing, security testing, and others. For DevOps QA testing, each of these tests should be subjected to automation to enhance quality, reduce test time, and improve the certainty of software behavior. However, merely automating the tests left, right, and center does not augur well when it comes to achieving an optimal quality level as well as minimizing the ...
Read more

What is the Importance of Compatibility Testing for a Software Application?

Image
  Customers are wont to use software applications for various purposes across device platforms, networks, operating systems, and browsers. They expect the software applications to perform seamlessly irrespective of the digital environments. However, customer experience in real-time does not always achieve such performance causing disgruntlement. In an industry where new devices are launched with different configurations, and new versions of operating systems, frameworks, and browsers are released in a few weeks or months, ensuring the software application perform seamlessly across platforms can be a herculean task. Moreover, since it is practically impossible to evaluate each customer’s usage of a device, browser, operating system, or network, it is imperative to ensure the software application functions properly across digital environments. This calls for integrating compatibility testing in the SDLC. What is compatibility testing and why is it important? Compatibility testing...
Read more

How many Types of Mobile App Testing Services are there?

Image
  The utilitarian value of mobile phones has been mainly due to the plethora of applications that are accessed by users to perform a raft of activities. These may include watching movies, paying utility bills, booking tickets, playing games, reading informative content, and buying merchandise, among others. Does this mean users lap up every application on offer? The answer is an emphatic NO as users look for attributes such as fast loading time, enhanced security, seamless navigability, and many others. Even as businesses are aware of the need to employ mobile testing services and ensure the release of quality applications, the pressure to remain competitive often overrides such considerations. Statistics show that approximately 68.07 percent of mobile applications never reach 1,000 downloads (Statista). In other words, approximately 67 percent of mobile app developers do not make a profit. So, what is the way out and ensure the apps hit the bull’s eye of customers’ approval? It’s ...
Read more