When I started working as a software developer, it seemed that development was the only thing in software engineering. Which is obviously a myth that got busted with the passing time. It seems that almost many people starting their career as software engineers, at some point consider this a reality. Well, the fact is that the world is full of competition, therefore we are getting higher values than our ancestors got.
Similarly, the world we are in now is also craving valuable software. Big players like Google, Microsoft, Airbnb, and many others spend thousands of dollars on their software testing.
Software testing or testing in software engineering is an investigation conducted to provide stakeholders or developers with information about the quality of the software product or service under test. (Wikipedia)
Testing is the way to make our software valuable. Just assume a situation in which you are using software that is extremely buggy, would you consider that software ever again? Well, if it’s me I would never think to use that software. Though testing is very useful, there are some things that we should consider before testing applications. Let’s discuss those caveats to make our software more valuable.
1. Understanding the Software 🕵️♂️
If you don’t know what the purpose of the software is then how are you going to test it? There is a famous quote by Dalai Lama XIV that is:
“know the rules well, so you can break them effectively” – Dalai Lama XIV.
Having the proper know-how of the software and its workings is part of the testing phase. You should first understand the work deeply before you start testing.
2. Planning ✍
You might have heard about the famous quote:
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln.
Most of the time, we start executing the tests before actually making an effective plan. Testing without a proper plan makes our testing phase ineffective and leaves some bugs.
I fully agree with the fact that there will be some bugs left despite having an effective testing phase. But with proper planning and putting a software testing strategy in place, we can reduce the number of bugs to a great extent.
3. Divide and Conquer 🚀
Dividing the problem can help us understand the problem better. You might have heard the story of “Unity is the Strength” where the woodman tries to practically teach their children the power of unity. He gives them a bundle of sticks to break, and his children fail to break the bundle. Later, he offers them a single stick to break and all of his children successfully break the stick.
The same applies in the testing phase, breaking the problem and testing each component individually makes the testing phase effective and easier.
4. Knowing your Target Devices and Platforms 📲
Another important thing to consider before testing starts is knowing your targeted device and platforms. Today the world we live in is flooded with a lot of devices. We have different sizes, platforms, and technologies. Even the browsers we use are different. One thing may work for Chrome and that may not work for Firefox.
Keeping this diversity in mind, we should test our device accordingly and specifically. As I alluded, the main purpose of testing is to remove bugs and make the software more valuable. So, if we know our target platforms and devices it would be easy to act accordingly and help us make our software much more valuable.
5. Availability of Resources 📚
One of the main things to consider is available resources. Think and plan accordingly to the available resources. You may not have the available human resources, machines or maybe even required tools or software for the test you want to perform. Therefore, it’s necessary to adjust some possible things and arrange others.
For example, imagine a scenario where I need to test my Software on Mac OS and I don’t have one. In this case, our requirement can’t be ignored and I’d have to arrange the Mac OS to perform my test. Don’t just skip what isn’t available, try to figure out the need and importance and act accordingly.
6. Consider the Right Testing Tool ✅
After going through all processes of planning, it comes to choosing the right tool. There are thousands of ways to perform a single task. Why is this so? Why do we have so many tools? Every tool may look like it solves a similar problem but in reality, this isn’t the case. Let me explain by taking the example of React JS. There was jQuery, so why did we needed to learn React? If you are a React developer you might know why. But when I started, I thought it’s useless to learn React JS because I didn’t know what this tool improves.
Every new tool which comes solves the preceding problem of the existing tool or is solely for another purpose. It might seem that both available tools are similar but they might be different. Therefore, knowing your tool and choosing your tool wisely is as important as planning and all other steps mentioned.
7. Working before Deadlines 🐞
Why am I including this point here? There is a very solid reason behind this. Well, sometimes during tests we may find a bug and report it to the development team. After getting fixed, that bug may introduce other bugs. Therefore, it’s important not to wait for deadlines, instead, try to do it earlier.
This will not only make the testing team productive but maybe in the spare time, we’ll get to know some hidden bugs that weren’t reported and even discovered yet. So, I think this point is ignored almost everywhere and makes teams ineffective.
Conclusion
Testing is an important phase in software engineering, but there are some things that I discussed that we should consider before starting the testing process. It will make our testing effective and enhance the value of our software by making it less buggy, more reliable, and robust. There may be some other things that I missed out which may be valuable, you can add them in the comments section. With all that, I wish you luck with testing to make our software even more valuable, and thank you for taking the time to read this article 😎