Artificial Intelligence (AI) was just a buzzword a few years back, but now it has become an indispensable part of human lives. AI is present almost everywhere, from smartphones, smart devices (Alexa, Siri, etc.), smart apps (Cortana, Google Assistant, etc.) to self-driving cars. With AI used across all fields such as Healthcare, Banking, FinTech, Insurance, etc., undoubtedly, this technology has its demanding presence even in the software testing field, which is on the rise today. Next-Gen technology is used in test automation to make the testing process smoother, faster, and more reliable.

Content 1. An overview of AI-based software testing 2. How can AI help overcome test automation challenges? 3. How is AI revolutionizing software test automation? 4. AI-based software test automation methods 5. Leading AI tools for automation testing 6. Conclusion

An overview of AI-based software testing

The software testing market has slowly changed from the initial manual testing to semi-automation, and then towards automation testing using tools. Further codeless automation, automation using bots leveraging AI & ML technologies, and specifically AI-based software test automation is in more demand in recent years.

AI-based software testing is an advanced software testing technique in which next-gen technologies like AI, Machine Learning (ML), and Deep Learning (DL) are used to test the software effectively. AI and ML apply problem-solving and reasoning techniques to automate and improve the testing process. AI-based testing can be performed effectively by leveraging tools that use data and algorithms to design and perform the tests without any human intervention. This advanced testing ensures better test coverage, test accuracy, faster time to market, and provides a significant reduction in overall testing costs.

AI is embedded into automated software testing processes making tests smarter, more reliable, and efficient. However, businesses continue to face many challenges associated with conventional automation testing methods and specifically, AI can be leveraged to overcome such challenges.

How can AI help overcome test automation challenges?

1. Finding the right set of people:

One major challenge associated with automation testing is finding the right team with the right skill set for scripting.

Solution: Businesses can leverage AI-based test automation tools that provide testers with a semi or fully codeless scripting platform, and can thus overcome the challenge of finding the right team and skill set.

2. Time consumed in performing repetitive tasks:

Every time a new test automation project comes up, no matter how reusable the components are, teams end up writing a lot of similar code again, which consumes a lot of time.

Solution: To overcome this challenge, AI can be utilized to generate test scripts quickly and automatically. AI tools can be trained based on the previous project inputs and outputs to create test scripts automatically for similar projects.

3. Flaky tests:

Testing teams spend hours determining if the failed test is due to application issues or poorly written test cases. These sorts of test failures are known as flaky tests, due to which a release is unnecessarily kept on hold, resulting in the delay of the software delivery.

Solution: AI can help teams overcome the challenge of flaky tests by creating more robust test cases and finding patterns in random test failures to speed up the process.

4. Frequent script updates due to UI changes:

In order to provide a seamless User Experience (UX), businesses tend to modify the app User Interface (UI). Even though the change may be minor or unnoticeable, it could fail the test scripts while performing some actions on the page.

Solution: AI and ML algorithm-based tools can be trained to determine minor changes in the code or bugs in the application. These tools can then take further actions accordingly and save human efforts in script updates for such minor changes.

5. Determining appropriate test size and test cases:

Every time a change is made in the application, regression tests are to be conducted. But, in a fast-paced environment, it is logically not feasible to run the entire regression suite of test cases for every change. Thus, determining the right size and set of test cases to be run for a particular change has always been challenging for the testing teams.

Solution: AI can help testers build algorithms that predict the right size and set the regression test suite for the given change based on different parameters.

6. Maintaining the test suites/test scripts:

As the size of an application becomes larger, it becomes challenging to maintain a large number of test scripts.

Solution: AI can be used to overcome this challenge as AI tools can be used to maintain and extract the required test scripts as per testing requirements.

Thus, AI helps overcome the challenges of traditional test automation and is said to bring a revolution in the field of test automation.

How is AI revolutionizing software test automation?

1. Helps automate the unit testing process:

AI can be used for static analysis of the software to decide which code area is not covered under unit tests. The AI-based software testing tools can use this information to generate unit tests for uncovered code. These tools can generate unit tests and even update the tests whenever the source code changes.

2. Enables visual validation of UI testing process:

AI can be used for UI testing as it involves the usage of image recognition techniques to navigate through the application. It can verify UI objects and elements visually to create UI tests. AI tools also use exploratory testing techniques to find bugs in the application’s UI. The AI tool generates the screenshot for later verification by QA engineers. It also verifies the other visual aspects of the system under test like color, size, layout, etc.

3. Eases regression testing significantly:

The AI-powered tools and AI-powered engines help to create tests faster, run thousands of tests in one go, and significantly reduce overall test maintenance. These tests work seamlessly across browsers and even mobile browsers.

4. Supports self-healing:

Many self-healing automation tools use AI and ML to automatically update and adjust changes in the UI or environment of the application. Typically, the AI tools detect the issues and remediate them without any human intervention through the self-healing method.

5. Delivers early defect predictions:

AI in testing helps in early and fast bug identification, reduces defects, and makes the product bug-free and reliable for end-users.

6. Smoothens the continuous testing process:

AI smoothens the continuous testing process by eliminating the chances of manual intervention. It can detect issues or defects in the testing process and trigger remedial measures to ensure continuity of the testing process. This ensures that only the bug-free code progresses from one stage to the next stage and helps to improve the quality across the software development lifecycle.

7. Ensures seamless execution of API testing process:

AI algorithms understand the patterns and relationships in different API calls and group them effectively based on the scenario. It understands the existing tests to learn about the relationship between APIs, and then uses this information to understand changes in APIs and finally creates new scenario-based tests.

8. Improves the security testing process:

AI can improve the security testing process by quickly identifying the cyber-security issues present in the software. It can extract information from the previously recorded data and analyze the system’s weaknesses in real-time. This way, AI can help businesses strengthen the security and privacy of their systems, application, data, and networks. It also allows testers to create more robust penetration tests.

Thus, it is evident that AI is used in all spheres of the automation testing process and ensures faster testing outcomes more efficiently without any human intervention.

AI-based software test automation methods

AI-based testing:

This testing method is an advanced software testing technique in which AI, ML, and DL technologies are integrated with the automation testing process to improve the software’s quality and speed up software delivery. Some of the common methods are:

Regression suite automation:

Regression testing consumes a lot of time and the tester’s efforts. AI-enabled regression suite automation intelligently runs automated tests based on the changes in the code each time. The main aim of this test is to reduce the regression test cycle time by identifying and executing the right set of test cases that must be executed.

Defect analysis and prediction:

It involves the usage of ML and NLP algorithms that helps with the effective identification of software defects. The main aim of this test is to ensure the early identification of defects and help businesses go to market early.

Self-healing automation:

AI-enabled self-healing process involves automatic healing of test automation script breakages that could occur due to object or other property changes. The main aim of this test is to ensure lesser manual intervention and a faster self-healing process.

Leading AI tools for automation testing

UiPath Test Suite:

UiPath Test Suite combines the world’s leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology with best-of-breed testing capabilities to accelerate scaling through proactive testing, cross-enterprise collaboration, and a consistent approach to create and deploy automation. UiPath Test Suite benefits practitioners who create automation and stakeholders who depend on automation, including transformation leaders, business users, customers, and partners. UiPath Test Suite consists of Test Manager, Studio Pro, Orchestrator, and Robots, and other Test Studio Components. Moreover, it fosters collaboration through reusable artifacts and has a user-friendly interface.

Sofy.Ai:

It is an AI-powered, no-code quality automation platform that leverages the power of AI to test mobile apps on a variety of android and iOS devices. It can be used to perform manual, automated, and RPA testing of apps. Uniquely, this no-code testing platform simplifies testing, saves testing time, increases productivity, and shortens the testing life cycle. This intelligent automation testing tool simplifies manual, automated, and robotic testing in a significant way.

Tricentis Tosca:

It is an enterprise software testing tool used for end-to-end automation testing of software applications. This tool comes with amazing features like Vision AI, model-based test automation, risk-based test optimization, etc. The Vision AI feature of this tool leverages the power of AI to automate and customize tests. It uses deep convolutional neural networks combined with advanced heuristics to deliver stable, self-healing, platform-agnostic UI automation. Vision AI, together with Tricentis Tosca, can be used to automate even the hardest-to-access UI systems.

Appvance IQ:

It is an AI-driven autonomous continuous testing system that can be used for test creation and execution. This tool allows the generation of autonomous tests and codeless test creation and can be used to execute functional, performance, and security testing. This tool supports continuous testing in a DevOps environment and can be easily integrated with Jenkins, TeamCity, CircleCI, Jira, and other CI/CD tools.

Functionize:

It is a cloud-based automation testing tool that is used for functional and non-functional testing (load and performance testing). This tool uses AI and ML algorithms to speed up test creation and maintenance. This AI tool uses a plain English language and NLP to create a functional test. Also, this tool can execute thousands of tests in a minute from all desktops and mobile browsers.

Parasoft:

It is an automated testing tool that can be used to automate the tests at every stage of the software development cycle, starting from code analysis to UI Testing. It is a test suite with various components, and it has recently introduced AI and ML into software test automation to help organizations adopt static analysis.  Parasoft’s AI solution can be used to detect defects early and to ensure compliance with a variety of functional safety, security, and coding standards. It reduces the burden of teams and ensures serious design issues are addressed first.

Applitools:

It is an AI-powered visual testing and monitoring platform that is easy to set up and integrates with all modern test frameworks. This tool supports all major browser versions and allows to check the functionality and appearance of the app on various devices like mobile phones, tablets, laptops, or external monitors.

Conclusion

AI in software test automation has become an important trend and has a tangible reality as AI holds the potential to take software testing to the next level. Undoubtedly it helps testers to generate more tests and ensures the speed and reliability of automated tests. But integrating AI into software test automation needs professional assistance as it is a complex process. Businesses can leverage AI testing from a Next-Gen QA and independent software testing services provider for high-quality software and faster time-to-market.

The post How is AI Revolutionizing Software Test Automation? first appeared on TestingXperts.

Enterprises across the globe continue to foray into the challenging and turbulent market space with a need for quality products to gain their market place. Software development of applications and products demands effective software testing that has a shift-left approach today. Software testing is taken up along with the software development life cycle (SDLC) to enable faster releases and deliver quicker ROI. Hence, looking at the criticality of software testing in the SDLC, more and more enterprises are looking out for end-to-end testing cycles and hence continue to invest in next-gen software testing services.

Contents 1. Top 16 Software Testing Trends to Look Out in 2020 2. Test Automation to Ramp Up Quality for Agile & DevOps 3. User Experience to take a Leap with Usability Testing 4. Big Data Testing to Empower Enterprises 5. IoT Testing to Boost Well-Connected Smart Devices Market 6. AI & ML in Testing goes Mainstream 7. Surge in Blockchain Testing 8. Demand for Cyber Security Testing on the Rise 9. RPA Testing is Even Bigger than Automation Testing 10. Performance Testing to Shift towards Performance Engineering 11. QAOps 12. Mobile Test Automation 13. Testing to become effective with Behavior-driven 14. Use of Scriptless Automation Tools 15. Multi-device Testing 16. Integration of tools 17. App penetration testing 18. Conclusion

A recent Nelson Halls’ report states Next-gen testing accounts for 24% of the software testing services spending. It is the fastest growth offering with a 12.8% CAGR for 2018-2023. Growth is driven by mobile testing, which still accounts for ~75% of all next-gen testing spending.

Evidently, software testing continues to play a key role in the emergence of software development methodologies like Agile and DevOps. In addition, with the industry 4.0 in place, the trend indicates a shift towards automation, cyber-physical systems, the internet of things (IoT) and the industrial internet of things (IIoT), cloud computing all around and the booming up of Artificial intelligence with Machine Learning trends. Testing of these technologies demands effective test strategies and testing methodologies to be in place. Interestingly, enterprises should ponder some of the major software testing trends to take the complete benefit of the market segment to derive products of their requirement.

Top 16 Software Testing Trends to Look Out in 2020:

1. Test Automation to Ramp Up Quality for Agile & DevOps

With the latest agile and DevOps processes, faster and quality releases as the underlying motto, most enterprises continue to adopt test automation. Undoubtedly, test automation has already penetrated into the industry in testing repetitive tasks quickly and efficiently. With DevOps substantiating proper collaboration between departments, test automation tools continue to lead the software testing space. The proper usage of test automation tools helps to achieve faster release cycles, better quality, and quicker ROI.

2. User Experience to take a Leap with Usability Testing

With the rapid influx of mobile and e-commerce applications, the significance of software testing has been witnessed to test the operating systems, platforms, and devices. The mobile apps continue to be the major business enabler for businesses today; an effective and great user interface with a streamlined usability flow is the need of the hour. Along with a quick app loading time, users continue to show preference to apps that have a great Usability embedded in them. Poor usability can affect customer and brand loyalty; hence usability testing identifies all the bugs before the application is released to your users.

3. Big Data Testing to Empower Enterprises

Enterprises across industries continue to deal with huge data volumes and diverse data types. The mining of any amount of structured or unstructured data defined as Big data needs effective testing. Big data testing helps to make improved decisions with accurate data validations, and helps improve market targeting and strategizing.

4. IoT Testing to Boost Well-Connected Smart Devices Market

It is expected that the number of connected devices will be more than 20 billion by 2020 when compared to the figure of just 6.4 billion during 2016. These figures represent the massive expansion and the need for an effective IoT testing strategy. It includes the testing of Operating systems, communication protocols, along with software and hardware of the IoT devices. Most enterprises have already started identifying the need for an effective IoT testing strategy to enable efficient and well-connected smart devices.

Especially, testing for vulnerabilities in IoT devices is an emerging business need as IoT typically encompasses all products that are connected to the internet in one way or the other. IoT systems collect data while in usage from various interconnected devices and share information with their manufacturers without the users being aware of it. Further, manufacturers in their haste to get new design features for smart products continue to overlook the complications arising out of security concerns of system’s software and hardware.

There is a possibility of vulnerabilities seen in the hardware (chipset) of many new IoT products which is susceptible for multiple threats that needs to be effectively tested. Even the software that is included in the IoT devices usually does not get any sort of security testing done while at the manufacturers end. Thus, numerous IoT devices continue to get hacked due to the susceptibility affecting the entire network of users. Hence, it is essential to get all the IoT products and devices security tested to avoid threats and vulnerabilities.

5. AI &ML in Testing goes Mainstream

According to a leading Research analyst, Artificial Intelligence(AI) will be omnipresent in all spheres of technological innovations. It will become the top investment priority of CIOs by 2020. The market for AI is expected to be around $6-7 billion in North America alone. Machine Learning (ML) and user interfaces such as Speech recognition and gesture recognition will advance in the future. The prediction of various tasks based on complex neural networks and algorithms has literally changed the outlook of technology and these applications also need rigorous testing and validations.

With the world completely moved towards digital transformation, there is much pressure to balance market requirements and build a system which is predictive and scalable to cater future needs of software. Testing needs to embed AI which perfectly imitates human behavior using machine learning and predictive analytics. Going forward for the upcoming latest applications in connected world evidently needs testing to use AI and ML to automate.

6. Surge in Blockchain Testing

There is a rapid expansion of the virtual currency Bitcoin usage. A recent report by McKinsey states that Blockchain is a nascent technology with the potential to bring about step-function improvements in financial transactions. Blockchain testing helps to enable smart contracts and ensures fraud protection.

Undoubtedly, the Blockchain technology has revolutionized the way businesses are dealing with digital currencies such as Bitcoin. These Blockchain applications are not limited to the financial world and its smart contracts are being used in every field of business from energy sector to governmental services. This wide range of applications support brings in new challenges to Blockchain debugging.

Moreover, once the smart contract is implemented, its execution cannot be reversed and hence, smart contract codes define how seamlessly the software performs even with increased workloads. This entire process of Blockchain testing calls for efficient outsourced next-gen testing services, specialized in debugging the code to deliver productive Blockchain applications.

7. Demand for Cyber Security Testing on the Rise

Undoubtedly with the digital revolution, there has been the emergence of various security threats. The CIOs of enterprises continue to realize the importance of security testing of their applications, network, and systems to ensure not only secure transactions but complete protection of end-users critical data. Thus, security testing has gained a lot of importance as it safeguards brand loyalty and prevents economic losses.

8. RPA Testing is Even Bigger than Automation Testing

RPA can also be named as an extension of Automation as it can be applied to anything which is in a structured form, unlike automation which needs a software product to work upon. RPA can be used with very complex processes that can be automated with AI. Specifically, it is a style of automation wherein a machine, or computer mimics a human action and helps in the completion of rule-based tasks. The Robot led automation has the true potential to change the workplace and does all tasks performed by automation testing tools.

9. Performance Testing to Shift towards Performance Engineering

Product performance has earlier been the major segment of testing but now, it is slowly shifting towards performance engineering which is not an easy process. The performance engineering process involves the collaboration of hardware, software, configuration, performance, security, usability, business value and it ensures to deliver the highest value that exceeds end-user expectations.

10. QAOps

The digital world is effectively in need of software applications that are released faster with no compromise in the quality of the applications. Earlier, the need for testing teams was limited only for performing application testing, but now the importance of QA is effectively increasing. QA is playing a crucial part in the complete software development.

Similarly, DevOps is another automation approach that has gained crucial importance in order to deliver applications faster. And the combination of these two methodologies, i.e. QA and DevOps brings a new practice called QAOps or DevTestOps.

With this practice, the testing, development, and operation teams can be on the same line by erasing the boundaries. With this latest approach, continuous testing can be combined DevOps and thus assures changes in software are made effective with the practice of Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD). Thus, software testing is not practiced at indefinite intervals and the applications are delivered with quality and without delays.

11. Mobile Test Automation

Mobile phones have become a very popular medium and this has enhanced the rise of mobile applications. Enterprises are choosing the pathway through mobile apps as an easy way to reach users. And, to ensure that mobile apps work efficiently for users, automation testing for mobile applications is essential.

With the rising mobile app market, the need for mobile testing with automation tools becomes crucial. Considering this effective needs, there have been many automation testing tools for mobile applications such as Robotium, Kobiton, TestComplete, Appium, etc. Mobile automation testing can be on the list of top trends until there is another powerful medium like a mobile application.

12. Testing to become effective with Behavior-driven

This has been in the list of software testing trends for many years and it is continuing the same still. Yes, Behavior-driven development (BDD) is effectively getting enhanced with the adoption of AI and ML by many organizations.

With the BDD implementation, it becomes easier for many organizations to upgrade their insights and business with higher user acceptance. This is because, the adaption of BDD requires the implementation of BDD tools, frameworks, and requires test cases built based on visitor’s interaction. A few of the top BDD tools and frameworks include Cucumber, Concordion, FitNesse, HipTest, etc.

13. Use of Scriptless Automation Tools

Software testing is effectively seeking many advancements and improvements continuously. Every change and advancement in this field is helping the teams in releasing applications faster with quality assurance. Among the many such advancements, scriptless automation is one of the important trends in 2020 that is reducing the human efforts and helping in accelerating quality applications that can help in achieving greater ROI.

With Scriptless test automation, there is no more the issue of coding for test engineers for automating test cases. This is an effective advancement helping to deliver quality results faster by reducing the coding time.

14. Multi-device Testing

The use of mobile devices is effectively increasing year by year and this is increasing the need for automation testing on a range of devices. However, this is not only limited to mobile devices, it is for many devices such as wearables, smartphones, smart speakers, etc. Thus, this year, automation testing over a range of devices become essential for many testing teams.

15. Integration of tools

The growing demands in the businesses are effectively in need of solutions that help in delivering faster and quality applications. In order to overcome this difficulty, it has become important for organizations to consider the integration of tools so that it eases in achieving seamless functionality within businesses.

Thus, the businesses of the present digital world are effectively in need of testing tools that can easily get integrated with other tools as they assure better application management. This is a very important software testing trend in 2020 to help enterprises and benefit them in the reduction of cost, management of application, etc.

16. App penetration testing

Almost for every industry, applications have become major important and these are playing a crucial role in their development as well. But, to ensure these work efficiently for users, the internet-based applications have to overcome several attacks and vulnerabilities.

Web applications have the most chances of facing vulnerabilities such as hacking. Thus, it is important for enterprises to implement successful security strategies for achieving systems that are secured and work efficiently for achieving business goals. And, to do this, it is necessary to include Application Penetration Testing into software testing practices. With this testing practice, it becomes easier for the teams to validate the effectiveness of the app’s security controls and identify the risks that are exposed to vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

Software testing method like any other services segment is attaining a new level with more traction towards the new trends stated above. Manual testing is slowly being replaced by automated testing, leveraging enormous open source and paid tools. Thus to ensure quality products, enterprises need to be updated with the latest software testing trends. It is important to partner with a next-gen testing services provider to be assured of quality for your products.

The post Top 16 Software Testing Trends to Watch Out in 2020 first appeared on TestingXperts.

According to Statista, in 2012, testing and quality assurance consumed 18% of IT companies’ budget that has now reached to 39% and will be 40% in 2019. 

Established companies have started realizing the importance of software testing. However, there is a dire need for technology startups to follow the same. Technology startups often face uncertainties and funding roadblocks. However, there is a great reason for startups to opt Software Testing; and the reason is Quality.

Contents 1. Limitations of a Technology Startup 2. Major Goals and Objectives of Software Testing 3. Software Testing Types that Shouldn’t Be Ignored 4. Conclusion

While a few bugs early in the software development phase might not seem a big deal, but software defects are known to be costly post its product-release. In fact, IBM states that the cost of errors increases dramatically as your software solution progresses through the development cycle. It’s about 30 times more expensive to fix a bug after release than during the initial stages.

[Image Source – IBM]

Limitations of a Technology Startup

Just like any other enterprise, technology startups have their limitations and challenges in software testing. These include lack of budgets, time and resources that have to be allocated to testing. Let us discuss these challenges in detail.

1. Time:

There is a constant pressure for startups to release a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) fast to get quick returns. Most startups perceive releasing their product in the market and fixing the bugs later upon identified by users/market is a good idea. However, they fail to realize that post-production testing takes a lot of time as there is a need to rework on the same piece of code every time they make a change. Hence, more time is involved in finding and correcting bugs at this stage.

2. Resources:

Like every coin has two sides, startups also come with the excitement of learning something new and dealing with the constant pressure of wearing multiple hats. Most startups don’t have a dedicated department for testing, their development teams perform the necessary tests. Therefore, they might overlook some bugs due to the lack of dedicated resources for testing.

3. Budget:

Budget constraints are a harsh reality for startups, and this is the reason software testing is overlooked. Additional headcount means extra expenses. The cost associated with finding bugs posts the production stage is way higher than finding them during the development stage.

4. Thought Leadership:

Often, technology startups lack a Thought Leadership team having a strategic planning of QA activities. The tools to use, the number of resources to involve, the total amount of time QA activities consume and the overall costs are often overlooked by startups. This makes it difficult for technology startups to release a certain application.

Understanding how to overcome the above limitations can help technology startups define their strategy. Under no circumstances should software testing be overlooked or dismissed.

Major Goals and Objectives of Software Testing

– Finding defects in the software to allow a smooth process

– Evaluating the level of a product’s quality and informing the stakeholder

– Ensuring that the final results match business specifications and user requirements

– Increasing profit potential

– Gaining customer loyalty by offering a quality product

Software Testing Types  that Shouldn’t Be Ignored

Here are a few types of software testing that should never be ignored:

Exploratory Testing

For a new application, exploratory testing is exceptionally important to lay the foundation of quality. Exploratory testing is an ad-hoc process, where the tester manually goes through the software in search of finding bugs.

Regression Testing

Testing is not a one-off process, every time a change is made to the code, there is a regression test to ensure the code has not broken the previous functioning features.

Performance Testing

Providing faster performance is the best way to establish a loyal user and vice versa. Application load time is an important factor that helps in keeping your users happy. The performance testing process ensures that the application loads quickly and can handle expected traffic.

Conclusion

When you are a new player in the market, quality will set you apart and help you grow. A simple formula to make your technology startup a hit is to keep your users happy and provide them with a seamless experience while they browse your application. Ignoring testing from your plan can probably cost you and your customers.

TestingXperts provide startups with unique plans according to their needs and in their budgets. Our core-flex models help in dealing with the inconsistent resource requirements of our startup clients. We offer flexible engagement models to facilitate our clients with optimized QA resource planning. This meets their fluctuating requirements at any time of their contract and saves unncessary budget leakage. Connect with us to have a unique software testing services plan for your startup.

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Cybersecurity has become one of the crucial features of the e-commerce industry. Without maintaining proper security practices, online merchants put themselves and their customers at high risk for payment fraud. Smaller companies have a higher risk of security scams due to inadequate internet security from cybercrimes.

Contents 1. Major Threats to an e-commerce company 2. Phishing attacks 3. Credit card fraud 4. Cross-Site Scripting 5. Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS Attacks 5. Bad Bots Aiming at E-commerce Industry 6. Solution: Extensive Security Testing

According to recent reports, one in five small business retailers falls prey to credit card fraud every year.

Not just hacking, but accepting fraudulent payment has also become a huge risk for all e-commerce companies. These security issues not only cause financial consequences but also hamper a brand’s reputation. Especially at the time of the big sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, these fraudulent activities increase as the number of customers on the website increases. Last year’s Black Fridaysale records speak for themselves.

According to Adobe Analytics, U.S. retailers earned a record $7.9 billion on November 24, 2017, an increase of nearly 18% from 2016.

This activity pushed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s net worth past $100 billion the day after 2017 Thanksgiving.

Major Threats to an e-commerce company

E-commerce security risks can be caused accidentally, intentionally or can be caused by a human error. The most predominant cybersecurity threats include phishing attacks, credit card fraud, DDoS Attacks, unprotected online services, etc. The user data such as login credentials, credit card numbers, etc. are some sensitive information that is protected by a customer. However, when it comes to e-commerce websites, we do not think and put our card number, CVV, and other information demanded by the e-commerce companies to make our transaction successful without being aware of its security.

Here are the main types of security threats to an e-commerce company.

1. Phishing attacks

Phishing attacks target user data like login credentials and credit card numbers. These attacks use social engineering methods where an attacker poses as a trusted entity and deceives a victim into opening an email or a text message.

2. Credit card fraud

There are several areas within an e-commerce website that aids as a point of interruption for a hacker to take payment and user information. An attacker by using malware extracts credit card information and sells the data. After this, the fraud is committed to mining the highest value possible through ATM withdrawals, e-commerce transactions, etc.

3. Cross-Site Scripting

This form of cyber attacks gives attackers access to the user’s information that is stored in the user’s computer. In this attack, the attacker inserts a JavaScript snippet on a vulnerable web page, and to a browser, it looks like a normal script and is executed in a normal manner. These attacks leave the website vulnerable to phishing attempts or malware installation.

4. SQL Injection

Website security SQL injection can shake any website using an SQL database, which includes various well-known e-commerce platforms like Magento. In this type of attack, a hacker inserts malicious SQL statements in a payload which looks like an authentic SQL inquiry. The attacker creates an administrative account for himself, erase database entries, or view private information if they manage to access the database.

5. Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS Attacks

High-profile e-commerce sites are susceptible to DDoS attacks, and smaller e-commerce sites may also be vulnerable if their DNS provider is targeted. This attack aims to take down the site by disturbing servers with requests. This attack overloads the servers, slowing them down considerably and taking the site temporarily offline, averting legitimate users from accessing the site or completing orders.

6. Bad Bots Aiming at E-commerce Industry

Bots are prevailing all over the Internet, and they can be both good and bad. Good bots are generally used by search engines to index and crawl the websites for search results. Whereas, bad bots gather information from websites such as card details, login details, etc. or take over real accounts by guesstimating the passwords.

According to a recent industry report, 97% of sites are hit with some sort of bad bots. For e-commerce sites, bad bots account for an average of 15.6% of a website’s traffic, with good bots accounting for 9.3% of traffic.

It’s a huge risk to e-commerce websites and applications.

Solution: Security Testing

Using the right security testing methods, e-commerce companies can minimize the threat of fraud and instill trust within their customer base. By performing stringent security tests on an e-commerce website/application, companies can significantly reduce the number of errors and create a shield for your website before it is launched in the market. Hence, before your company becomes prey to the attackers and before it gets too late, make sure you evaluate your current testing program and consider executing end-to-end security testing.

TestingXperts has wide industry experience and has been handling a number of e-commerce clients for their security testing and other software testing and QA requirements.Connect with us to know how we can help your brand in creating a better and securer website/application.

The post Security Threats Are Haunting the E-commerce Industry. How Can Security Testing Help first appeared on TestingXperts.

Insurers worldwide are motivated to make significant investments in the latest technologies to improve customer retention and reduce costs. By embracing new business strategies and outspreading their online existence to the web and mobile platforms, they are extremely focused on investing in modernization and streamlining their core and legacy systems so as to boost operational efficiencies.

Contents 1. Insurance domain testing 2. Software testing in the insurance sector 3. Why Test Automation? 4. Benefits of Test Automation in the Insurance Sector 5. 4 Rs that Test Automation brings to the insurance sector 6. Conclusion

Insurance domain testing

Significant losses and increasing operating costs due to disastrous events have made it challenging for them to sustain themselves in the market. In order to stay ahead of the competition and to provide the customers with a great application experience, the industry is going through several trials and tests to reconfirm that the applications are able to meet the objectives.

Therefore, to boost the growth of the insurance sector by ensuring better user experiences, the testing of applications/software has become a critical factor. Software testing applications before release is imperative for a successful launch of an application.

Software testing in the insurance sector ensures:

– Quality of product/application – Hassle-free endorsement and cancellation process – Accurate calculation of policy premium – Real-time claim tracking – Authorization and authentication for claim processing – A quick and easy refund process – Timely notifications around policy expiration or premium payments

Why Test Automation?

The insurance domain is vast and testing each and every feature/functionality manually is not possible, especially when a new product/feature is released frequently. With technology boosting the sector, testing has to be recurring with no scope for manual errors, and automation testing is the only way out. Automating the existing set of workflows can be a game-changer for organizations. Test Automation with a comprehensive framework of scripts boosts speed and also brings quality.

Benefits of Test Automation in the Insurance Sector

Every application needs to facilitate processes and resolve issues in order to bring about combined expertise. Test automation brings its essential benefits for the insurance sector in its own way.

Here are the 4 Rs that Test Automation brings to the insurance sector

Reliability:

Robustness:

Reusability:

Replicates the environment:

Conclusion

With insurance being a data-sensitive, life-sensitive, and time-sensitive industry, there is no time to turn back and evaluate – it has to be now or never. Test Automation is the perfect solution to bring about consistent results and continuous testing with minimal human intervention for the application.

Here at TestingXperts, we understand the prerequisite of the industry and support you via customized testing solutions to manage the entire testing lifecycle – new business and underwriting, policy administration, billing, rating verification, claims settlement, and statutory reporting. We have extensive domain expertise across various segments of the Insurance sector like Life, Property and Casualty, Auto, Travel, etc. Our proprietary IPs & tool-agnostic test automation framework ‘Tx-Automate’ help in reducing testing efforts by 30%-40%.

The post Is Quality Becoming the Achilles Heel for Insurance Companies? How Test Automation Can Help! first appeared on TestingXperts.

The advent of DevOps has made the concept of “shift-left” familiar to the software development and testing industry. However, the effectiveness of the shift left concept is not just limited to QA. Security teams can also benefit greatly from shifting security operations to the left.

Contents 1. What is shift left? 2. The Benefit of Shifting Left 3. Why Shift-Left in Security? 4. How to Effectively Shift Security to the Left? 5. Conclusion

What is shift left?

Before penetrating into the details of shift-left security, let’s discover the shift-left concept and identify its importance.

Shift-left is a simple term for a complex task. Simply put, shifting left is positioning a process that is performed later in the development cycle to a point early in the delivery lifecycle. The main objective of the shift left concept is to start building more effective and easier-to-manage processes while also saving more time too.

The Benefit of Shifting Left

The traditional waterfall methodology taught us not to start the next step of the development cycle until the previous steps were accomplished; the real testing of the software was initiated after the development was completed. However, with the new shift left approach, testing is initiated with the development process itself. The traditional waterfall methodology could cause problems for an organization as the discovery of any major bugs at a later stage can activate the need for major code refactoring.

By addressing issues at the point of origin, shifting left clearly has a better ROI. In contrast to the traditional development method, there is a dedicated team for quality. The main objective of this mode of operation is to respond to issues, not necessarily preventing them.

Why Shift-Left in Security?

The benefits described are not just limited to the testing process but can also boost the security of an application. Shifting security left in the real world is like creating a fire escape strategy. In the software security world, it is a threat modeling plan before the coding begins, educating and training developers on securing the coding practices.

If the application is continuously assessed for security issues from the outset of development, it is extremely unlikely that a major security concern would arise toward the delivery pipeline. It is more likely that only trivial security distresses would exist as the application development process comes to closure. This is a direct outcome of placing discernibility into the application’s quality by constantly validating that security standards are being employed properly.

The objective is to move the application quality and security concerns closer to the developer, i.e. to the “left” of the delivery chain in order to avoid any potential issues and resolve them sooner, ideally before the code is finalized. Technology undoubtedly makes shift-left easier. However, it can only help in fighting half the battle.

How to Effectively Shift Security to the Left?

With the help of the shift-left security testing approach, software is developed with security as a design principle and software-defined platforms as enablers. This helps in implementing cutting-edge testing methods and eventually performing the end-to-end investigations. More importantly, it creates longer-lived and more secure software. Here are our 4 tips to effectively shift security to the left.

Conclusion

The benefits of shift-left security are remarkable. As application development grows, it is easier to see why so many DevOps teams are shifting processes such as security and testing to the left in the delivery pipeline. Shift-left security pays for itself by averting security issues or helping developers to identify them early on.

Shifting security to the left comes with time-saving benefits such as early detection of bugs and security issues while making the development lifecycle safer and faster. It helps DevOps organization in releasing high-quality, secure applications quickly to the market.

Get in touch with TestingXperts’ Test Advisors to know how we can boost the security of your applications and offer faster time-to-market.

The post Shift-Left Security: Assuring Security Early in the Delivery Pipeline first appeared on TestingXperts.

User acceptance testing (UAT) is the most crucial phase in the software development lifecycle. Uat testing ensures the new system or uat defect management process meets the user requirements. It is crucial to get the application through the user acceptance tests as it is the last quality gate validates product quality, accuracy, and compliance before its deployment into production.

Contents 1. Objectives of UAT testing 2. Role of QA Teams in User Acceptance Testing 3. What are the different types of User acceptance testing (UAT)? 4. Tasks Performed By the QA Team for a Successful UAT Process 5. What are the tips QA teams should follow while practicing UAT? 6. How is UAT different from other levels of testing? 7. Conclusion

A successful UAT is crucial for deploying systems with no errors and business risks. However, implementing UAT in an agile environment might lead to frequent and reduced cycles of testing. This mandates the testers to develop skills of optimized testing techniques, automation and work in collaboration with the development and QA teams.

Therefore, a user acceptance test is an important and final phase to test business processes executed in the application or software finally.

Objectives of UAT testing (User Acceptance Testing) :

• Verify system set-up for transactions and user access
• Confirm use of system in executing business processes
• Validate performance on business-critical functions
• Verify integrity of converted and additional data
• Evaluate and sign off go-live readiness

Each user acceptance test differs depending on which business process is being tested. At-large, however, UAT testing will involve these activities:

Role of QA Teams in UAT testing (User Acceptance Testing)

User Acceptance Testing is generally a “black box” testing. In other terms, the emphasis is on the functionality and the usability of the application rather than the technical aspects. The User Acceptance Testing is the last Quality Assurance effort before the release of the application. It is carried out in an environment that closely resembles the real world or production environment.

In most organizations, user acceptance testing is carried out by business users. It represents a cross-section of users to test the new application using real-world scenarios. As this testing is a fundamental check of software quality, special care must be given to establishing a proper UAT testing environment and approach.

Every organization yearns to deliver products and services that are of the best quality. To ensure that the product is of the best quality and meets customer standards, Quality Assurance (QA) function comes into perspective. Through the implementation of QA, review processes are organized and the best testing practices are applied for determining the quality of a product.

QA is a key function that helps organizations build better products. There are many organizations who are also interested to utilize the potential of User Acceptance Testing (UAT). This testing method is performed to get valuable feedback from the product owners and the customers, and this software testing method is performed to ensure that the functionality, scalability, quality and security of a particular product (or) service are in-line with the customer expectations.

The key question to ponder upon is why organizations want to leverage QA and invest their resources and time in UAT?

Before understanding the role of QA teams in UAT testing, let’s first understand the effective individual contribution that QA teams and UAT provide to an organization.

The significance of QA teams:

When an organization makes a strategic move by embracing the QA function, specific tools, processes, resources and controls are integrated to maximize their effectiveness. Through this integration, a thorough review check of a product or system is evaluated, which helps in finding defects, design and functionality issues.

The QA team prepares in-depth documentation that covers the specific tools, processes, structure and best practices for developing a product that is rich in quality. The QA manager steps in to track the progress of product development and then utilizes testing methods for resolving the functionality issues.

The necessity of UAT:

UAT method finds what exactly the customer expects from the product by taking their valuable feedback. Customers act like a feedback support group that provide their feedback for improving the functionality and user experience of the developed product. Typically, UAT is the last phase of software testing wherein the product owner or the customers test the developed product in real-time and provide their valuable suggestions to the teams. The teams in turn look at their feedback and take up actions accordingly.

The role of QA teams in UAT:

– UAT focuses on developing the best quality product by taking in constant feedbacks from the customers. QA teams must ensure that the testing methods are strategically executed to not only improve the quality and usability of the product but also to make it customer-friendly

– QA teams streamline the testing process in such a way that the outcome of UAT is much better, thereby leveraging the UAT implementation process effectively

– QA teams work on iterating the product functions in terms of improving the quality and efficiency of a product, through inspections and process checklists. Through this on-going activity, UAT can improvise its testing processes and thus contribute to developing a product of high quality.

If we talk about the bigger picture of quality initiatives, user acceptance testing is an important element in any Quality Assurance program. To get the optimum results from this type of testing process, it is advisable to designate the task to an experienced QA team.

What are the different types of User acceptance testing (UAT)?

Compliance/Regulation Acceptance Testing:

In this type of software testing, the developed software is tested against some regulations and rules to check whether the software is meeting the required requirements or not.

Alpha and Beta Testing:

Before the product or the software is planned for a release, the alpha testing and beta testing methods are taken up. Generally, alpha testing is performed in the development environment and beta testing is performed in the customer’s environment. Based on the feedback received, the development teams fix the issues to improve product usability with alpha testing; and the feedback from beta testing helps in overall product improvement.

Operational Acceptance Testing:

This testing practice is also known as production acceptance testing. It helps to verify whether the workflows that are used by the software system are maintained properly or not.

Contract Acceptance Testing:

This type of testing is performed on the developed software programs. It helps to check whether the developed software can meet the pre-defined criteria or the specifications that are agreed within the contract.

Black box Testing:

Tasks Performed By the QA Team for a Successful UAT Process

1. Setting up tools – Test data and defect management tools

2. Setting up roles and responsibilities of business users in the tools

3. Developing test cases and user acceptance testing Runbook

4. Setting up Test Data in the test environment

5. Training business users on how to execute Test Cases and log defects

6. Retesting and regression testing of defects found during UAT

What are the tips QA teams should follow while practicing UAT testing ?

Understand user expectations:

While performing this testing, it is essential to perform tests by considering multiple factors to meet and understand user expectations. Also, it is important to verify whether the product has met the requirements and expectations of the target audience.

Test on real-world connection factors:

During the practice of User acceptance testing, along with the practice of verifying user requirements, it is crucial to test user acceptance with the usage of real-world connections. Testing on real-world conditions will help to validate the product performance and enhances the test results by finding out the issues or errors. Hence, to meet the user standards, considering real-world scenarios is important.

Prepare to test in advance:

Usually, in the development cycle, User acceptance testing is considered to be conducted before the product is being launched. Planning the user-experience test at the end of the development cycle can create hurdles and may cost expensive to solve the errors. To avoid such scenarios, it is important to plan UAT in advance. This will help to make the process flow faster and helps to recreate a test plan another test plan if the earlier plan fails.

Setup testing throughout the project:

While practicing UAT for a product, it is very important to carry out user acceptance based testing throughout the cycle. When this testing is performed at the final stage, it will be difficult to find and fix the errors in a limited period. This will create a bad impact and adversely damage the overall user acceptance. Therefore, to avoid such situations, it is crucial for enterprises to adopt the practice of User acceptance based testing throughout the process. This will simplify the way to maintain quality apps from the initial stage itself.

Review the test plans regularly:

When practicing testing, along with UAT errors, it is even important to validate the user acceptance checklist by the user acceptance based testing team or from a knowledgeable QA team member. In order to achieve the best results from the testing plans, it is crucial to validate and review the test plans regularly. In addition to this, it is even essential to re-verify feedback and UX tools that are being used to >perform the tests.

Maintain a structured UAT management system:

To achieve the best results, enterprises should choose the right automation tools for achieving the perfect outcomes. Hence, while selecting a tool, enterprises have to look at various factors. The tool should be capable of team collaboration and have features such as tracking the bugs, efficient dashboards, filtering options, security, etc.

How is UAT testing different from other levels of testing?

-While performing this type of testing, instead of finding defects, the main focus should be on verifying whether the system or the software or the application is as per the specific user context or not

-In this testing, it is essential to involve users as they play a great role in UAT testing and designing. As they understand the real-world conditions, they are good to state where the app can excel and fail during the real usage

-For User acceptance testing, visual evaluation is a major need to evaluate a test case. This can be achieved when the tests are performed manually. Another benefit by including more number of manual UAT testing is that it can help in receiving more return on investment

Conclusion

An application is considered to be infallible once it passes the quality assurance test. However, User Acceptance Testing has an equal and major role to play. Quality assurance testing tests a software solution in a defined environment; which might catch any technical faults. This testing provides the beneficial role of certifying that the product actually works appropriately on the field. Hence, it often has a different focus from quality assurance, as the emphasis is more towards validating business requirements than technical implementation.

Generally, UAT testing is performed by business users who lack basic testing knowledge. Businesses that have suffered huge losses due to post-release issues, know the significance of successful User Acceptance Testing. The cost of fixing defects after its release is way greater than fixing it before. Hence, outsourcing this process to an experienced software testing provider can help organizations to release a foolproof application to the market.

TestingXperts, with its comprehensive QA and software testing experience, has domain SMEs capable of providing user acceptance testing solutions to the clients. Also, we have a specific training program for the business users for helping them in setting up the process efficiently. Connect with us to know more on how we can collaborate with your teams to help them build an efficient UAT testing process.

The post How Can a QA Team Efficiently Support the UAT Process first appeared on TestingXperts.

The rapid demand for IT organizations to deliver high-quality software at a progressively faster rate has necessitated the shift to agile development and DevOps methodologies. As applications under development become more complex in nature, continuously changing to include new technologies and feature sets, manual testing simply can’t keep up. This rapid shift is driving the need for test automation. Test Automation delivers strong benefits, such as.

Contents 1. Test Automation Benefits 2. Ways to Drive Value from Automation Testing 3. Define a Clear Set of Goals 4. Don’t Automate Everything, Manual Testing Will Still Be Needed 5. There is More to Automation Than Just Functional Testing at the GUI Level 6. Test Automation Requires Regular Maintenance 7. Choose Tools Matching Your Team’s Skills 8. Define a clear test data management strategy

Test Automation Benefits

Irrespective of whether a traditional or agile development approach is applied, opting for test automation needs careful planning and an exhaustive understanding of the benefits it can deliver. Setting the right expectations for test automation can lead to creating a successful strategy whereas having unrealistic expectations can do the opposite.

Embarking on the journey of automated software testing requires the adoption of best practices such as behavior-driven development (BDD) and continuous integration and testing. These are key elements to improving the overall development process. When done well, the advantages of test automation are indisputable, but when done poorly, the disadvantages can be worse.

In this blog, we will identify the ways to drive value from Automation Testing.

Ways to Drive Value from Automation Testing

The following recommendations will increase your possibility of succeeding in adopting test automation as an integral part of your testing approach.

1. Define a Clear Set of Goals

It is essential to define a simple but clear and balanced set of goals while automating tests. Test automation has been taken as a “magic bullet” that will reduce the cost of testing dramatically and is also assumed to offer 100% coverage. However, the main purpose of automation testing is to find defects early on and diminish quality risks by not allowing them to proliferate without the need for human intervention.

Defining a clear set of test automation goals allows the whole team to experience the benefits of automation. On the other hand, if automation is considered as another form of management control, it will not be effective. Therefore, it is important to list goals and develop an execution plan which leads to incremental improvement.

2. Don’t Automate Everything, Manual Testing Will Still Be Needed

While there are numerous benefits to test automation, automating every test might not be beneficial. For example, usability and exploratory testing require human intelligence and intervention, and do not explain an investment for automation.

Therefore, teams will need to leverage both manual and automated testing to ensure software quality before launching an application. Employing a mix-blend of the manual as well as automation testing can be the best way to succeed.

3. There is More to Automation Than Just Functional Testing at the GUI Level

Almost every team starts its automation effort with GUI functional tests, however as the components of the GUI tend to change regularly, they are costly to build, slow to implement, and delicate to maintain. Hence, to ensure that problems are discovered easily and rapidly, a blend of different testing levels and types is required to reach the anticipated level of quality and to alleviate the risks associated with defects.

Teams should not just think about automating GUI functional testing, but also various other types of tests, such as:

A clear test automation strategy should feature the amount of time your teams spend in each area. The prime focus should be on the highest-value tests, allowing you to establish a clear ROI.

4. Test Automation Requires Regular Maintenance

Poor practices yield tests that are hard to understand and maintain, and may produce failures which take time to research. As the application or system is modified, you need to evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of each test constantly. New scripts must be written to bring out new features and directions. Teams have to write and maintain these tests. This truly helps to ensure that you are not building tests that will disrupt things as easily.

5. Choose Tools Matching Your Team’s Skills

Due to a large number of automation in testing solutions available on the market, the products available from various software companies often vary in terms of their focus and practical scope. No single solution from a solution provider will meet all of your testing needs. Therefore, it is important to select the right tools that take application targets into account, fit your team’s development practices, and also match the skills of your resources.

6. Define a clear test data management strategy

In order to test business-critical software, testing teams need to plan and retrieve the essential test data, as well as the activities associated with it. Unavailability of the required data can have a severe impact on the software testing activity and can result in inadequate testing coverage. Test Data is something which constantly gets refreshed and versioned after some time, having to be repeatedly referred to to evaluate the required outcome of an activity. If test data is not managed and maintained appropriately, it can cause delays in the testing and development process. Hence, it is important to have a clear test data management strategy to accelerate the application’s go-to-market speed and to eliminate business losses.

Conclusion

It can be established that automation testing results in cost reduction, as well as time/effort savings, consistency, quicker feedback, and results, thereby contributing to increased productivity and profits. Improved test automation with accurate testing techniques helps ensure that a shippable product is delivered at the end of every sprint.

TestingXperts’ Test Automation strategy enables organizations to increase release velocity and reduce time to market. TestingXperts has developed an extensible automation framework, ‘Tx-Automate’, which is modular, reusable, integrated and compatible. The framework helps to configure/create test suites by combining various automated tests and making those test suites available for execution. Connect with our software automation testing services to know more.

The post 6 Recommendations for Driving Business Value from Test Automation first appeared on TestingXperts.

Contents

What is Digital Disruption in the Banking Sector

Digital disruption has been occurring at every level in the banking sector lately. From newer technology to high competition to intensified customer expectations, the banking industry has become increasingly vulnerable. Digital technology, despite its omnipresence, is beginning to penetrate industries. Banks are finding innovative ways to evade the impending risks associated with digital banking. The efficient way to understand and successfully bring the organization from traditional banking to digital banking is by adopting an Omni-Channel approach. Omni-channel is an approach to customer service where all the channels are closely integrated, keeping the customer as the priority.

So how does a banking organization survive in the face of digital disruption? Though there are no secret sauces or magic wands, there are just simple testing strategies for digital disruption that can help banking organizations prepare for the unavoidable change on the horizon. In this infographic, we will discuss those strategies in detail.

Top Strategies to Overcome Digital Disruption

The post Top 5 Testing Strategies to Overcome Digital Disruption in the Banking Sector first appeared on TestingXperts.

Contents 1. Role of Quality Assurance 2. Domain Specialization and QA 3. Advantages of Domain Specialization in QA 4. Conclusion

Role of Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance practices over the past years have experienced many waves of innovation, be it test automation or methods to optimize testing. With changing times, the QA function as we knew it transformed and the focus shifted to:

– Meeting the essential compliance and regulatory standards

– Requirements coverage referring to code coverage

– Giving utmost importance to customer experience

Earlier, QA industry had a horizontal focus and was indifferent to business domains. However, it is turning out to be an industry where domain specialization is a must. Therefore, QA teams need to have profound knowledge of the business domain while testing an application. For QA teams to be considered as quality gatekeepers, their understanding of the domain must be up to the required standard.

Domain Specialization and QA

Domain knowledge can add an advantage to the testing project by helping testers to prioritize the features for test execution and exercise underlying business rules. Domain specialized experts can test an application in the most anticipated way, according to the end user perspective. Domain knowledge can help Quality Assurance teams achieve multiple benefits throughout the Software Development Lifecycle.

Advantages of Domain Specialization in QA

Here is the list of the advantages of having domain specialization:

1. Quick requirement analysis:

Having a domain specialization helps identify gaps in the requirements, ensures better coverage from business functionality perspective and enables early identification of defects through static testing.

2. Better user story development:

A QA with good domain knowledge can help the product owner by writing better user stories and defining better acceptance criteria.

3. Builds capability:

Domain knowledge helps a QA engineer to have a better view of the product. Without proper domain knowledge, defects in the underlying business rules can remain uncovered in the preliminary stage of testing, causing problems during the final or release stage.

4. Thorough understanding of technical terminology:

An engineer who completely understands the domain can detect issues early as compared to a novice in domain knowledge. A proper understanding of the technical terminology will help the tester to describe the problem and design edge case scenarios accurately.

5. Helps in prioritizing bug fixes:

With proper knowledge, the tester will have a clear idea of how to prioritize the bug fixes and can guide rest of the development team. While planning the bug fixes, the tester will not just save cost and time but will also enhance the overall product a quality in cost-effective manner.

6. Reduces training time:

Domain specialization can increase the overall productivity of the team and add better value to the final product.  Having prior knowledge of the domain will reduce the training time, resulting in quicker results. Proper knowledge of the flow of the business processes helps in achieving a better understanding of the product requirements.

7. Boosts the productivity of the team:

Domain specialists are in demand due to their ability to understand the application beyond finding bugs. Having domain knowledge can help in suggesting and implementing fixes in crucial times. This not only saves time, but also increases the productivity of the team.

Conclusion

Emphasizing on domain specialization in QA is bridging the gap between business users and the IT teams, thus increasing the relevance of the work product delivered to the end user. Domain specialization is creating a platform for innovation by evolving the QA practices.

TestingXperts’ domain-based testing team of QA professionals have extensive experience in the latest technologies across various business verticals such as Healthcare, Insurance, Manufacturing, logistics, Banking and Financial Services, etc. While being well versed in the latest testing trends, TestingXperts’ team come with great domain knowledge and skill sets. TestingXperts’ domain-based testing ensures delivery of the expected services and enables the higher customer satisfaction.

The post Achieve Next-Level of QA Innovations with Domain Specialization first appeared on TestingXperts.