In this blog post, we are going to learn about “How to perform Software Product Testing”
Software products need their own unique approach to test frequently and efficiently. most of the time teams treat them as any other software(i.e. not used by the general public, nonrevenue generating) and that is the starting point of trouble
Custom test style and strategy is used for software product testing to add value. A complex ecosystem itself sustained and software product development and adaptability is needed for a thrive testers.
Let me take a little time to explain why it is so important and why development of a product is complex, composite and complicated, even at the best of times.
Software Product development challenges:
Here are some of the challenges that Software Product development teams face:
- Lack of control over user demographics, environments, platforms, devices, etc
- Foggy product vision:
- Aggressive timelines
- Fear of failure
- Lack of actionable feedback
These challenges affect all areas of product development, marketing, and sustenance- And they inherently impact product testing too.
To get ahead in the game, this type of testing has to take five key points into account:
- Speed of software development and releases
- Short term and Long term goals of the product
- Extent and nature of competition
- Target customers and their environments
- Requirements – Functional, performance, security, usability, configuration, etc.
Before we go into more details, let’s understand product life cycle.
Let’s see how to test at each stage. This is product test process, method, or life-cycle.
Stage #1: Product Introduction
TrackFast would be going out into the market, the idea is for making a good impression. Everything should be tested in every angle. And also lay the foundation for future testing.
In this stage, a piece of product is ready at the end of 3-4 week sprints. So, never consider last sprint testing ‘done-and-delivered’. Repeat all the critical tests with all the sprint until release. And test the entire product that you have until that point.
Stage #2: Product Growth
After the product initial stage, if everything goes well, expect an unstable of activity because the product is fast faced lane. You are now running with a tiger and loins and unless you keep up, you will be eaten.
Here, the releases get smaller, the improvements done to the software became larger and extent of regression becomes unmanageable.
The product testing should be worked with the pace that the software in the development stage and should not at the end of the process.
Stage #3: Product Maturity
When the product has come this far. At this stage, there will be no often changes in the features.
Hence, the product is going to be more focused on bringing more business or their marketing efforts.
Stage #4: Product Decline
The product owners and businesses are getting smarter these days and know very well that they can’t keep their product the same and expect the users to stay loyal. Things move too fast and so do products.
What makes you a successful product tester?
Product testers should have a perfect business sense, understating of fast delivery development models and should be reliable testers who should be ready to experiment with tools and become coders themselves when needed. These things can have an effective impact on any type of testing.
Another important quality is that a product tester must believe in the product and genuinely want it to succeed. When I as a tester think that the software is total garbage, there is little hope that I will do anything to make it better.
Share the product/business owner’s vision. Unless you know where the product is going and how it is going to evolve, the testing will be super limited.
Cross-functional skills are beneficial-Know how to test the DateBase, how to take performance benchmarks, how to enable security certificates, how to deploy, etc.
Set no boundaries– don’t think that evaluating the user manual or checking the FAQs is not your job and a technical writer should take care of it. Well, they should and they will. But when you look at it as an insider as someone who knows the product inside out, your feedback is super useful.
Seek end user feedback. The next big set of people who test after you are the real time users. Know and understand what kind of problems they are facing. This helps you improve your test design so next time you know what to do to avoid them those problems.
Work fast and be a decision maker
However, for a product, the testing strategy has to be changed depending on the current life cycle stage the product changes to the market dynamics(new devices and browsers, etc).
Conclusion:
At the end, the product testing strategy should be much more flexible to change and more adaptable for any environment.
The next time, I’ll write about some other techniques of testing.
PS: Image courtesy: softwaretestinghelp.com
Kumaresan T,
Test Engineer,
Mallow Technologies.