Bug Blog

Usability testing is no longer treated as just something that needs to be done at the end of website or application development. It is now an important element that is present, at least to some degree, throughout the development cycle.

Perhaps the single most important element in software testing is to produce a functional piece of software. You want what reaches the customer or the marketplace to be as free of bugs as possible.

User acceptance testing (UAT) is vitally important to the successful implementation of any application. This is because of the “mystery factor.” No matter how many functional tests are performed, there will always be the difficulty of integrating a new piece of software into the operational pattern of any organisation. Operational stresses that cannot be accounted for in earlier testing can only be found during the user acceptance phase.

UAT isn’t always easy. User acceptance testing can sometimes be costly. Acceptance tests take a long time to write and, once implemented, they take a long time to run. User acceptance testing cannot move forward any faster than the speed of the user. UAT can also be expensive to maintain, because it is so intimately tied to user experience. Every change, even the simple renaming of a button, requires updating the tests. Consequently, there is a strong tendency to minimize acceptance testing in order to speed delivery and save money. But is this really a good idea? While user acceptance testing can be a pain, it does have its benefits.

The purpose of nonfunctional testing is to go beyond the input and output of an application to determine how well it meets system requirements. Nonfunctional testing determines how well an application interacts with the the environment in which it is intended to function.

From the viewpoint of software development, interface exists to enable human beings to communicate with and use software. This is so true that the average individual judges the quality of an application by the quality of its interface. It doesn't matter how well the program may perform its designed functions, it will still be rejected if the interface is not well designed.

Devops stands for Development and Operations and refers to connecting software development and operations in an agile manner. This is done primarily through enhancing communication between these two major divisions, as well as communications between customers and other stakeholders.

User experience is the make or break point of any application. Ultimately, it is the user who determines the quality of an application. This is why testers try to make testing scenarios as realistic as possible and to address mistakes that users might make and how users might approach the application. It’s a matter of getting into the user’s head and the best way to do that is to be the user, at least in spirit.

Software testing began as a human activity and has evolved, right along with coding, to embrace an increasing amount of automation. The pressure to automate is quite strong. It speeds the development process and cuts costs, at least most of the time. But is it always the go-to solution?

Even though software is now an indispensable part of business operations, not all business executives are thoroughly versed in software testing, what it is and how it works. Here are some important things that business people need to know about software testing, whether they are tech savvy or not.

What is continuous delivery? It is a solution that is intended to eliminate the traditional slowdowns in software development. The basic idea is to develop a system that will gradiently improve software by the delivery of working software elements at each stage. These elements can be tested and assembled into a complete application while taking needed improvements and requirement changes into account. And so, continuous delivery is an approach to software development that allows users to receive new features as quickly as possible.

Every now and then, there arrives an idea whose time has come. DevOps is such an idea. But, it didn’t look that way at first. Yet, DevOps has taken off in only a few years to become a major influence on software development and deployment. And it has, through its use of infrastructure as code, greatly sped up the development cycle.