How to Find Maximum Valid Defects in Any Application?

Takeaways from a committed testing fan:

Ever found yourself in a scenario where you, being fresh out of college, got employed by a company as a Quality Control Analyst or Software Tester instead of a software developer?

Has it ever occurred to you that more experienced colleagues constantly coached you to undertake a project that would enhance your software development skills rather than testing?

Were you told that it’s acceptable to initiate your career as a tester, but it’s essential that you eventually shift towards a developer role? Otherwise, your professional growth may get hindered?

Or have you been persuaded to believe that testing involves minimal skills?

If you found yourself answering ‘yes’ to any of the abovementioned queries, be prepared! As I’m about to impart some guidance from a person who is truly excited about testing and intends to continue in this line for a considerable duration!

What is the context of this piece?

This write-up not only highlights why testing is equally essential, if not more, than software development, but also emphasizes that spotting bugs or glitches demands imagination, prediction, proficiency, and profound expertise.

This article also shares a couple of recommendations and strategies to pinpoint software vulnerabilities and bring flaws to light.

Refer Also => Further tips on unearthing bugs in an application

What is Software Testing?

According to the technical terminology, testing is a careful inspection activity to verify if a portion of code or a product fulfils the necessary specifications for user consumption.

In simpler language, testing is basically an approach to identify “what isn’t right” or “what can be further bettered”.

Needless to mention, this approach must be deployed with the intent of exposing issues or, in plain terms, ensuring the product or feature excels or surpasses expectations.

Relevance of Testing

On closer thought, isn’t testing deeply entrenched in our everyday living? Let’s take the universal example of shopping. As a customer, when you visit a clothing store, you carry certain anticipations before making a purchase.

The first thing any shopper does is try the dress on and see whether any adjustments are required. Don’t you think this task in a way involves testing or verification? And isn’t it crucial?

Similarly, concerning software development, errors or glitches are inevitable in any feature or product. Irrespective of how perfectly a program or feature is coded, something or the other can invariably go wrong. This may not necessarily be a reflection on the competence of the developers, but on the intricacies of the software itself, which can get daunting to control.

Ever pondered the number of implementation or design flaws that could arise from sheer intricacy?

Interestingly, around 50% of the development timeline is devoted to testing to ensure that the code operates as expected. Furthermore, the expense of rectifying a bug or error is significantly less during the initial phases of the software development life cycle compared to the latter stages.

Another vital consideration is that – in a competitive arena characterized by rapidly emerging technologies, with companies formulating numerous rival products and setting them against each other, what kind of product do you think customers would opt for?

It’s reasonable to assume that customers would prefer a reliable, enduring, and user-friendly product. This is where testers come into play and play an indispensable role in assuring the quality of the software or product.

Moreover, for high-level product demonstrations to stakeholders or customers, technical representatives typically ask for the test team’s help and heavily bank on their reviews to arrange customer demo sessions. The technical proficiency necessary to be a tester is apparent.

While testing, have you ever questioned why something is done one way and not the other? If yes, you are wired to propose improvements, offer valuable insights, and even kick-start Proof of Concept projects!

What Is A Software Bug?

A Bug can be characterized as a program or feature’s failure to meet its projected outcomes or a dissatisfactory condition that hinders the user from attaining their objective.

From the discussion above, as testers or the term I prefer “test software developers,” the prime objective is to unearth as many bugs as feasible, as quickly as possible. This demands not only a minutely observant eye but also an ability to dive deep into the system and pinpoint situations leading to a breakdown.

While software developers have constrained knowledge of the unique feature or program they are working on, test software developers have the scope to gain a broad end-to-end understanding of the software/product and, in certain scenarios, even penetrate its architecture to discover potential challenges.

So, who do you reckon possesses more acumen and knowledge?

Optimal Practices To Magnify The Probability Of Locating Legitimate Bugs

Although every person has their distinct testing style, I would like to share some tips and tricks, based on my experience, to ensure thorough test coverage and maximize the detection of legitimate bugs.

#1) In-depth Study and Self-learning

Gaining profound knowledge of the feature being integrated is of utmost importance.

• A typical remark made by the development team is that testers do not fully comprehend the feature, making it difficult for them to distinguish software defects from non-defects.
• As a tester, even though you might not be directly participating in technical High-Level Design assessment sessions, it’s essential to approach the developers and ask for a copy of the High-Level Design, Use Case documents, or any other technical input documents that can enhance your understanding of the feature.
• Another rewarding practice is to hold meetings with the developers to discuss the technical facets of the feature being integrated. Efficient communication serves as a handy tool to gain in-depth knowledge not just about the software/product you are part of but also about customers and related products.
• Besides, try to understand how a customer would use that functionality. Remember, you function as a conduit between your company and the customers using the software, so you carry a huge responsibility in understanding the product not just technically but also from the user’s viewpoint.
• If the feature implements existing technologies, make sure that you understand those underlying technologies.

For instance, I had a similar experience when we provided support for a networking concept grounded on an IEEE standard. I visited the IEEE website and researched a variety of articles linked to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the concept.

This approach aided me in identifying bugs that were not within the defined use cases outlined by the development team but were legitimate in terms of the actual functionality specified by IEEE in real-life scenarios.

Of course, it’s evident that this study helped me locate more bugs than any other team member.

#2) Planning Test Scenarios

Unquestionably, research and knowledge are crucial at every stage of testing and bug identification. After the initial stage of self-learning, allocate considerable thought into planning the test scenarios.

• It’s a well-known truth that test case strategizing is a vital phase in the testing life cycle. The test cases you create and plan openly reflect the product’s quality and the extent of testing conducted. The test cases you outline directly influence the robustness of the software that will be dispatched to customers.
• After scrutinizing a use case document or any other technical functional input document, provide substantial thought into designing the test cases. Ensure a good blend of happy path scenarios, error path scenarios, alternate path scenarios, and creative/ad-hoc/creative scenarios.
• Be methodical while outlining scenarios and confirm their validity. Undertake multiple reviews with the development team and architects to include their feedback into the test cases. This will ascertain that no time is wasted in creating or enhancing invalid test cases.

#3) Investigating Setup Preparedness

During many testing cycles, the test team has some time to spare before actual testing commences.

• In this interval, it’s beneficial to assess the preparedness of the testing infrastructure. It’s common for testers to find themselves in circumstances where many of the defects they reported are related to the setup and get disregarded as they cannot be rectified through code modifications.
• Testers often find it frustrating when a majority of their reported bugs are denied due to setup problems, even if they obstruct the testing objectives. This leads to a testing progress deficit and a shortage of genuine bugs that can explain the obstacle. In other instances, a test may yield different results each time it is run, making defect duplication extremely complicated. Developers often lack the patience and willingness to probe issues that seem peripheral to the features they are integrating. Ask for help to stabilize the testing infrastructure as early as feasible.

#4) Testing Techniques To Locate Glitches

Let’s now delve into the most interesting part of our role: testing and, consequently, bug identification. We are lucky individuals who significantly contribute to improving the quality of developers’ code.

• Identifying weaknesses: During testing, it’s significant to have the perspective to probe deep and discover potential points of failure.
• Happy Path Testing: Initially, keep track of the time allocated for testing a segment of code. Reserve a considerable part of time for testing the happy path scenarios. It’s likely that you won’t find many bugs in this phase as developers usually ensure effective unit testing for the happy paths.
• Error Path Testing: Next, proceed to test the error path scenarios. Reserve sufficient time to test the error paths as this is usually the most rewarding area. Feel encouraged to be as imaginative as possible! You are likely to discover issues here.
• Ad-hoc/Creative Testing: This kind of testing is usually placed under error path testing. However, it’s beneficial to allocate the last few days of the testing cycle toward this activity. I have found several legitimate bugs through ad-hoc testing and negative testing.
• Communicate with Developers Prior to Filing a Bug: Although testers are not usually required to collaborate directly with developers and can simply document bugs, I heartily advice all testers to interact with developers to discuss issues observed.

Two major reasons for this are:

a) Most developers want to avoid having bugs attributed to them due to tight timelines and may reject a bug, asking for additional information as a tactic to buy some time.

On another note, developers may genuinely have trouble understanding the steps necessary to reproduce a scenario followed by a tester and may return the bug, requesting replication steps, thus burdening the tester further.

b) The second reason is that we frequently work with globally distributed teams, and fixes may need to come from developers located in different geographical areas. If the issue is clear to a local developer who is initially assigned the bug, they will ensure that their observations are recorded in the bug and then redirect it to the developer tasked with the fix.

This avoids delays in resolving the bug, as the developer in a different time zone will already have some crucial information to start the fix, reducing the back-and-forth communications between the tester and developer and reducing the bug’s age.

Logs: Providing clear steps for reproducing an issue isn’t solely important for testers; it’s also significant for testers to get acquainted with the logs generated during test runs. Including accurate logs in a bug report hastens resolution. Testers must familiarize themselves with log information.

Again, exchanging dialogues with developers to comprehend the log information is vital. On my part, developers have always encouraged testers to comprehend code flow and logging. Once you get familiar with the logs, you can promptly identify the point of failure by analyzing the stack trace. You can also identify more bugs more effortlessly.

Here’s an additional example that underscores the significance of familiarizing oneself with logs. During our testing cycle, we encountered a situation where a certain feature appeared to behave correctly as per the specified use cases. Nevertheless, a field issue arose when customers noticed a series of null pointer exceptions in the logs throughout the scenario flow. This was deemed a critical escape because it was viewed as unacceptable. Resources had to be swiftly directed to devise scripts or tools that could provide direct reports of the null pointer exceptions.

Keep a Check on Filed Defects: Without being intrusive, it is always beneficial to monitor the defects being filed to prevent duplication and, consequently, denial. This significantly reduces the number of duplicated bugs.

Maintain Run Logs: Although it may seem like an additional task for testers, I believe it’s beneficial in the long run. Run logs are like diaries that chronicle the day’s work and progress.

Run logs can contain information about the test scenarios run, their behavior under different conditions, the expected output, the actual output, all the steps followed by the tester, and defect information for specific scenarios.

Preserve a neat and understandable record of all this information, and you will have no difficulty reporting status to management or remembering whether a certain scenario was tested or not, even years later. Everything is documented!

Wrapping Up

The abovementioned guidelines can inspire new testers in the industry to develop the necessary mindset to guarantee high-quality products. Personally, these practices have greatly empowered me to become one of the most organized testers in my unit. It is also notable that most Subject Matter Experts in any company are primarily testers.

Enjoy the process of locating bugs and assuring product quality!

About the Author: This is a guest post by Sneha Nadig, a test lead in a prominent MNC, with over 7 years of software testing experience.

If you find these tips helpful, please express your views in the comments. We also welcome further tips and suggestions from our professional readers.