Software Testing Myths and Realities

It is commonly observed that in software development process, the development process is given much more importance than software testing. But in this time where the count of the software houses is increasing day by day, the competition among them is also increasing. Only a few of the software houses are making good repute in the market and developing trust. The answer is simple – this is only because of the quality software they are delivering. If the company has good team of software testers, then they will earn good name in the market. So, if any software firm wishes to create goodwill and reputation in the market, then it must pay attention and give equal importance to testing as well.

Some of the myths that affect the Software Quality are as follows:

Testing has no Importance as compared to Development

Most of the developers have an impression that if they have unit tested their app, then they don’t need any tester to perform integration testing or any other kind of testing. This impression is totally wrong.

Consider the following case:

You go to a new restaurant, which you have never tried. You order something, and your order goes to the kitchen, and they start preparing your meal. The chef cooks the meal and tries to cook it perfectly. After the meal is cooked, the head chef tastes it and if he/she is not satisfied with the taste, then he/she asks the chef to add another ingredient to make it perfect and then it is served to you. You try it and like it. You develop trust for this restaurant, that this restaurant serves good meal. This trust was created because of the involvement of the head chef. If he/she had not tasted the meal, the meal would not have been so good for you.

In this scenario; you are the Client, the chef is the Developer and the head chef is the Tester.

So without the software tester, the software cannot be good enough and if delivered to the customer without proper quality assurance, then the client loses the trust in the firm and never comes back for another product.

Tester’s Task is lot Easier than a Developer

Another misconception is that a tester’s task is lot easier as compared to a developer. Developers think that the testers don’t need to do any brainstorming like they do.

The developer gets the requirements from the client and makes the software according to the given specifications, but the software tester needs to have strong analytical skills to think of the test scenarios to test that software.

Consider the following case:

The client asks the software team to develop the software of a CCTV camera, the developer develops the software and it goes to the tester for QA who tries to figure out whether it is performing the required functionalities or not. So, the tester has to have strong analytical skills for testing it, for instance, he/she will test it when the background of the picture to be captured is black (i.e. at night) and when there is sunlight outside. Tester will also perform stress tests, if the CCTV camera is used to capture fireworks at night, will that be possible etc.

Hence the myth that testing is lot easier than development is absolutely absurd.

The Firm should Hire more Developers instead of Testers

Most of the software houses believe that they should hire more developers instead of testers, but in fact every software house should maintain the 2-1 ratio i.e. 2 developers and 1 tester. If that is maintained then the software product will indeed be of great quality.

The tester has to understand the whole domain of the software under test, and has to explore all the functionalities given in the software. If the tester does not have enough time to understand the domain of software under test, then the tester will not be able to find the bugs effectively. If the company hires fewer testers than the proposed ratio, then the testers will not understand the project effectively and in return, the quality of product will suffer, and reputation of firm will be at stake.

Testing Process requires much less Time than Development

This is a common myth in the minds of most people that testing process requires much less time than the development process. However, the reality is quite opposite to this. Tester doesn’t only have to manually test the software but sometimes has to write automated scripts as well.

When the software comes to a tester for testing purposes, then the tester has to understand the whole domain. Tester has to write test scenarios/test cases; then he/she moves on to the application testing phase. This phase includes many types of testing like, Functional testing, UI Testing, Load/Stress Testing, Responsive Testing, and Regression Testing etc. Once the defects are found, the tester has to create a defect report. So, this myth that software testing consumes less time than development is totally wrong.

So, if the company wants to create a presence in the market, then they must give the same importance to testing as they do to development. Both testers and developers play an equally vital role in deciding the fate of the company.

If you know about any other such myths then please do sound off in the comments section below! 🙂