Common Software Testing Mistakes and how to avoid them

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Mistakes and how to avoid them
3. Conclusion

Introduction

Software Testing is a crucial part of software development lifecycle. It involves thorough checking the functionality of application to ensure that the software is of high quality and meets the requirements before being delivered to end users. There are various common mistakes made by testers which are affecting the quality of software applications.These mistakes can also result in non identification of critical issues and delay in release of applications.

Mistakes and how to avoid them

Below are the common mistakes and  the steps taken to avoid them

1. Improper test planning: If there is no clear testing strategy,proper objectives then it will result in poor testing and missing of the requirements.

               How to avoid: 

• A proper test plan should be developed containing test objectives, scheduling, resources, test cases and deliverables.
• Every stakeholders should be involved in project planning so that the business objectives are achieved successfully.
• The tests should be prioritize to such that the most basic and critical functionality is tested first.

2. Testing at later stage:  If testing is done at the later stages of software development then bug detection process becomes late thus affecting the software release schedule.

                 How to avoid: 

• Testing should be started during the early stage of software development right from requirement collection and design phase.
• Test Driven Development(TDD) or Behaviour Driven Development(BDD) should be used where tests are written before source code to ensure that there is no error in the source code.
•  The test cases should be integrated with CI/CD pipeline in order to run them continuously throughout the development process.

• Improper test coverage: Testers sometimes test only the basic and critical features and ignore testing the edge cases and negative test scenarios resulting in non identification of bugs thus impacting software quality.

                How to avoid: 

                1)There should be thorough test coverage

         which includes functional, non functional and 

        edge cases.

             2) Code coverage tools should be used to detect and test 

            3) Exploratory testing should be done to uncover those defects that were not detected in normal testing process.

• Not performing automation testing for repetitive tasks: Manual test execution of repetitive tasks becomes a time consuming process and  results in lot of human errors.

              How to avoid: 

1. All repetitive test scenarios like smoke ,regression should be automated using automation tools like Selenium,Tosca,Appium etc.
2. More attention should be paid to high priority tests that requires constant execution and where human efforts do not play much significant role.
3. Automation test scripts should be regularly updated and maintained.

5. Poor coordination between developers and testers: Testers and developers working independently without proper communication can result in poor understanding of requirements, test scenarios and other issues.

How to avoid: 

1. There should be proper coordination between developers and testers right from the start of the project.
2. There should be regular code reviews,  joint test planning sessions to ensure proper understand of  software requirements and features.
3. Proper utilization of project tools like Jira, Github for tracking defects, tasks in a common environment.

6. More focus towards positive testing: It refers to test those scenarios which gives positive results and ignoring negative test scenarios, errors and exception handling.

How to avoid: 

1. Test cases should be written for all the types of test scenarios like positive, negative and boundary tests.
2. All the possible edge cases like invalid input,poor network connectivity should be rigorously tested.
3. Usage of error handling to check the performance of software under different load and stress conditions.

7. Improper detection of defects: Failure in proper documentation of defects as well as not assigning priorities to defects result in non identification of critical defects thus delaying the defect fixes and software release.

How to avoid: 

1. Defect tracking tools like Jira,ALM etc. should be used for prioritizing and assiging defects.
2. Detailed steps for reproduction of defects, should be mentioned alongwith expected results, actual results and screenshots of the area where defects are found.
3. Defect resolution progress should be regularly tracked to ensure all critical defects are fixed before software release.

8. Ignorance of Regression Testing: After addition of new features, removal of some existing features and bug fixes if regression testing is not done then old issues alongwith new defects can arise.

How to avoid:

1. Regression testing should be made an integral part of software testing process especially when there are new features and bug fixes.
2. Automated regression testing should be done to save time and maintain consistency.
3. All the old bugs are retested after fixing to confirm that all the defects are resolved.

9. Testing only under normal conditions: Performing software testing only under normal conditions and avoiding testing under high load or different environments result in non identification of various issues.

How to avoid: 

1. Load testing, stress testing etc. should be performed to ensure that the application can handle huge amount of data, high traffic and unexpected scenarios.
2. Browser compatibility testing should be done on different browsers.
3. Cross platform testing should be done to ensure the application works in different operating systems.

10. Poorly communicating  Test Results: Providing incomplete test results or not communicating test results properly can make the stakeholders confused and unaware about the exact status of the application.

How to avoid: 

1. 1. Providing a detailed test reports containing passed, failed and skipped test cases.
   2. Use of visual tools to present progress of tests, defects statistics in an easily understandable format for all stakeholders.
   3. Conducting test status meetings regularly to update the team on test progress, bugs and and the potential delays.

Conclusion

In order to avoid all these common testing mistakes it is important to adopt a proper and strategic test approach.Continous testing, coordination and proper usage of testing tools can prove very fruitful in enhancing the software quality and prevention of critical issue during production and release of software.