Top 5 Software Testing Best Practices to Stay Ahead of the Competition

Rigorous software testing is a cornerstone of quality assurance within software development. It involves executing a series of planned exercises to identify and expose any defects or malfunctions within a software program. In fact, it has become a gigantic industry surpassing $45 billion in market size. These numbers suggest a competition that is supposed to make software reliable and secure. However, fast-paced technological changes have only raised the bar for what effective software should be. This is why software testing best practices must be implemented during development. 

Software testing best practices can let you stay ahead of the competition. High-quality software meets user expectations, complies with industry standards, and helps maintain your company’s competitive edge. It can also mitigate failures that can possibly happen when the software is released. Such failures could be crashes, data loss, security vulnerabilities, and other problems that can cost a company a lot of money.

This blog will let you dive into software testing best practices that can let you stay ahead of the competition.

A. Test Planning and Strategy

A solid test plan and strategy are the backbone of successful software testing best practices. They guide the testing process, ensuring all aspects of the software are covered. Before testing starts, it is important to understand the project’s needs and set clear test objectives. This serves as a roadmap that specifies what features software should have. Without this knowledge, testers will not know what to focus on to identify the success criteria.

In addition, getting input from stakeholders during planning ensures that all viewpoints are considered. Since feedback comes from different perspectives, unexplored functionality, and performance areas will be improved. This ensures the finished software product meets technical specifications and business objectives. It also helps spot potential risks and set realistic goals.

B. Test Automation

Test automation greatly improves testing efficiency and effectiveness. It is a robust quality assurance measure that automates and verifies how software applications should behave in certain conditions. This is done by creating test scripts that outline expected results for specific user actions. 

One advantage of test automation is the use of test scripts. Automated test scripts can be executed repeatedly without incurring additional costs per execution. This facilitates the provision of prompt feedback on any regressions introduced by modifications to the codebase. This proves particularly beneficial for repetitive test cases, which are inherently prone to human error during manual testing. Automation ensures consistent execution of these tests, eliminating inconsistencies and enhancing the accuracy of the test results.

Furthermore, effective test automation requires the best tools. Hence, look for tools that are compatible with your technology stack, easy-to-use, and well-supported by the community. Some popular automation frameworks include Selenium, Appium, and JUnit. 

C. Continuous Integration and Continuous Testing

Traditional testing methods, where testing happens in isolation from development, can lead to catching bugs late in the cycle, making them expensive and time-consuming to fix. Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Testing (CT) come in here. CI and CT are powerful practices that work together to streamline software development. They strongly focus on automated testing throughout the development lifecycle.

Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice emphasizing frequent code change integration into a shared repository. Developers working on a project typically contribute code to a central location, like a version control system (VCS) using Git. CI automates the process of integrating these changes. The CI pipeline triggers the build process upon any code change being committed to the shared repository. This process compiles the code, checks for syntax errors, and executes a suite of automated tests to identify potential bugs in the code’s functionality. If the build fails at any stage, including compilation errors or failing tests, it indicates a problem. Developers are notified immediately, allowing them to fix the issue early in the development cycle before it becomes a bigger challenge.

On the other hand, Continuous Testing (CT) builds upon the foundation of CI. While CI focuses on ensuring code integrates smoothly, CT ensures the code actually functions as intended. CT integrates automated tests into the development process. These tests can range from unit tests (verifying individual pieces of code) to integration tests (checking how different modules work together). Similar to CI, these tests are run automatically after every code integration. If any tests fail, developers are notified right away. This allows them to catch and fix functional bugs early in the development cycle.

D. Performance Testing

Software development extends beyond ensuring core functionalities operate as intended. Performance testing is necessary in assessing an application’s responsiveness, stability, and scalability under a simulated range of workloads. This evaluation process helps identify potential bottlenecks hindering the application’s performance in real-world scenarios. 

Here are the types of Performance Tests:

• Load Testing

Check how the system handles expected load conditions. It simulates real-world traffic patterns, gradually increasing the number of virtual users accessing the system. This helps identify performance bottlenecks and ensure the application meets expected response times during normal or peak usage periods.

• Stress Testing:

Tests the system’s performance under extreme conditions to find its breaking point. Simulating extreme conditions is designed to push the system to its breaking point. This might involve an unrealistic number of concurrent users, large data volumes, or unexpected usage patterns. The goal is to identify the system’s limitations and how it behaves under extreme stress.

E. Security Testing

Digital criminals leverage modern technologies like generative AI. Because of this, even the most robust software is susceptible to hidden flaws, making it vulnerable to data breaches. Security testing has become one of the essential foundations of software development. Here are the three most common vulnerabilities during security testing:

• SQL Injection

Consider logging into a web application before you enter credentials. SQLi allows attackers to inject malicious code disguised as regular user input. This code manipulates the database behind the application, potentially stealing sensitive data or even modifying or deleting critical information.

• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

This vulnerability exists when user input is not properly validated before being displayed on a web page. Attackers can inject malicious scripts, often JavaScript, into these fields. When another user views the page, the script executes within their browser, potentially stealing their session information, redirecting them to malicious websites, or altering the content.

• Buffer Overflows

These vulnerabilities occur in programs that rely on fixed-size memory buffers to store data. An attacker can cause a buffer to overflow and damage nearby memory regions by providing more data than it can handle. This corruption can be exploited to inject malicious code that gives the attacker control of the program itself.

Conclusion

Optimizing operational efficiency is a key driver in today’s software development lifecycle. Thorough software testing streamlines the release process by identifying and resolving issues early, minimizing costly rework. This involves strategically implementing the best practices we provide in this blog. Incorporating them into your software development can help you avoid costly consequences and other company damages down the line. You can also explore possibilities based on these practices in future software development projects. However, there are still unexplored software issues that only software testing experts can find and solve. Fortunately, our demonstrated expertise is here to fill these unexplored software issues.

Beta Breakers has the exact capabilities in terms of tools and workforce to ensure that your software captures industry and market standards. Their expertise spans automated testing to mobile app testing, allowing you to prioritize other aspects of your business. Our rigorously drafted test plan provides a clear roadmap covering the software quality assurance process. Your business will thrive in an ever-changing software landscape with our software quality assurance solutions.

Contact us today to learn how our software quality assurance solutions can significantly benefit your company’s software development efforts.