Software Application Testing Company Three Questions

Software Application Testing Company Three Questions

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There are just three things to think about before contacting a software application testing company. Yep, just three little questions to ask yourself once your software is “almost” ready and it’s time to have a professional take a look to make sure there aren’t any nasty little surprises left in there.

Trust me on this–if you know the answers to these three questions, I can promise that you’ll find the perfect software application testing company for your unique needs.  I promise!

On the other hand, if you don’t know the answers to these three questions, the best any application testing company is going to do is *guess* or *assume*.

I’m pretty confident you don’t want the company you’re seeking help from to *guess* or *assume*, do you?

Answer These Questions Before Contacting Any Software Application Testing Company

1 – What are your goals for this project?

Specifically, the list of things you want done (and NOT done) and the list of things you want to see so you can be confident the goal has been achieved. Nothing complicated – even some jots on a napkin will help. What’s MOST important here is that you’ve thought about it enough to be clear about what you do and don’t want.

Why? Software quality means different things to different people. Google is OK with some defects in their software (permanent Beta) while high-end jewelry stores are not willing to tolerate even a slightly-less-than-perfect image.  Either approach is effective but only in the context of your specific needs and goals. If you know (or have at least thought through) where you stand on your goals, the application testing company you’re talking to can do a much better job of understanding and meeting your specific needs and goals!

2 – What is your budget for this project?

Yeah, the budget question….and budget is more than just dollars! Possibly more important is TIME. When do you need it to be done? You probably already know this but it’s important enough to make sure. Take a minute and confirm the dollar budget you have to spend and the date by when you need to launch the application.

Why is this important to know and SHARE? Very simply, it helps the application testing company you’re talking with do a better job of understanding and proposing a solution that meets your unique needs. If you withhold this important information under the guise of an outdated and ineffective vendor negotiation model, you’ll get quotes and proposals that are more guesses than fact. What you get is a best-guess for a solution where critical facts are missing. Further, if you award the project based on this approach, you’re merely awarding the “best guesser”.  That’s probably not what you were seeking when you went looking for a software application testing company. The good ones don’t *guess”.

3 – How will you chose the best vendor for you and your project?

Some folks have a need for speed and others have a need for deep attention to detail. Some want a very close relationship between developers and test engineers and others don’t want their developers bothered. Some people want lots of transparency in the process and some people just want the defect reports. Decide which methods and priorities best meet your needs.

Why? If you share your selection criteria with the application testing companies you’re talking to, they can customize their proposals to highlight their differences and how those differences can be valuable to YOU. If you don’t, everyone is back to guessing and that’s not going to improve your certainty of success. In some cases, time can be saved when a firm quickly determines they are NOT the best fit for your project. Wouldn’t it be better to acknowledge that and get out of the way instead of endlessly pestering you for another sales call?

A good software application testing company, like TESTCo,  is not in the guessing business. We’re in the facts and confidence business. Please help us help you achieve your goals and dreams. Think through the three questions the best you can, then give us a call.

 

Website Testing Services

Website Testing Services for the Average Bear

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When it comes to website testing services, you might not be smarter than the average bear. Or, you might not know if you are.

That’s OK, I can help you sort through some of the techno-babble about getting some help with website testing so you can quickly become smarter than the average bear.

You see, when it comes to software testing, hunting, farming, being a Dad, or training a dog I am smarter than the average bear.

If you ask me about psychology, event management or finance then I’m definitely not smarter than the average bear. Best we stick to the subject of website and web app testing right now, okay?

Cutting Through the Clutter of Website Testing Services

As I scanned internet articles to see what was being written on the subject, I noticed a few things that could be confusing or misleading to the average bear.

Let me sort through those things now to help you find an outsourced website testing company that work best for your unique need and business goals.

Set the Right Goal

First, set a goal. Know what you want.  A SMART goal  is great – even if you don’t know all of it.

But, you may not have a “goal” and that’s OK, too. Use these simple questions to figure out what you really want from your website testing services.

  1. Do I want website testing because it’s something I “should” do or because I’m concerned about the cost of losing customers and prospects to bugs and glitches? This answer will help you (and us) understand why you want website testing services.
  2. What does it cost me to get a new prospect to visit my website or eCommerce store? What is the lifetime value of one of my customers? This answer will help you understand the risk of loss from bugs and glitches that website testing can help you prevent.
  3. Do I have time before I need to release my website to fix the bugs and glitches that the website testing finds? This answer will help you understand if you will get real value from your website testing work.

There are not any right or wrong answers to these questions. The answers are important but the thinking and reasoning you do while answering those questions will shed light on what you really want and we can easily help you turn that into a website testing services goal.

Here’s why knowing your goal is important. Testing is an activity – and it can be performed for as long as you want it performed – regardless and without respect to your goal.  You’re probably more interested in the outcomes of testing – defects, bugs, test plans, test cases, etc – than just knowing someone is testing it. If you know your goal before you start looking for help with website testing services, you’ll get the outcomes you’re looking for. Otherwise, you’ll definitely get some “testing” but you won’t know if it is helping you achieve what you actually want.

Don’t Be Over-Sold by Tool Vendors

Second, Tools! (Hat tip to Tim the Toolman, who always got excited about tools and machines.

Almost everything I read on the internet about website testing services seems to be about how a great tool can solve your problem.

Yeah, like having a hammer get’s you a birdhouse. Not so much. Tools are only as good as the person using them. So, this begs two questions.

  1. How long will it take to learn how to use the tool?  They seem easy in the demo but have you actually tried using it?  It may not be as easy as you think.
  2. Even if you know how to use the tool, will you know where to use it most effectively? Just because you can easily and quickly run a bunch of tests, how will you know they are the right tests applied to the right place in your website?

Humans are more important than tools. Tools help humans be more useful.

The Human Element in Website Testing Services

Third, Testers! Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter.

I’ve learned that there is a difference between a Tester and a Test Engineer. We don’t hire testers and you should look very carefully before you hire them yourself.

Here’s why.

Testers do very well when they are told what to do. They don’t do so well when given a testing problem to solve.  They just don’t have the mindset, education and ongoing training to come up with good alternatives or judgment to select the best course of action.

Test Engineers are seekers, finders, and solvers of quality problems. They have university level degrees in math, engineering, and computer science and are actively engaged in ongoing training in quality assurance and control. Sure, they cost a little more – so does a nice car – for a great reason. They both deliver more value per dollar than a less expensive choice – like a tester.

Name Dropping in the Buzzword Jungle

Fourth, Buzzwords like AI, Services, Technology, Systems, Industry, Functional, Performance, Security, Usability can lure you into a trap. Remember, you’re hiring website testing services, not a copywriter.

When it comes to website testing services, having deep knowledge and experience in some set of buzzwords is far less valuable than having seen and completed hundreds of website testing projects.

TESTCo is focused solely on providing the best website testing services for your business. The buzzwords used to sell you on testing services won’t help fix bugs in your code or ensure your application works well when it’s released. We have decades of experience when it comes to solving testing problems that are similar to yours. Instead of writing about buzzwords to entice you to select TESTCo for services, we are focused on providing real testimonials and consultations so you can see our services firsthand.

If you’re looking for a match between your situation and what the website testing services company can provide, look to the references and testimonials and give them about 10 times the weight you’d give to their buzzwords matching your buzzwords. Even better, reach out and talk to the reference/testimonial yourself!

Trust Your Brand to a Crowd of Strangers? Really?

Fifth, there’s the whole crowdsourcing thing.

Sure, some things might be better, faster and cheaper when crowdsourced. But, when what you’re interested in crosses the line from “opinion” to “expert advice”, you’re probably going to get better and more valuable results from an expert rather than “the crowd”.

I know (and so do our clients) that a dedicated QA Team with a QA Manager and a Test Engineer, even for a tiny project of a day or so, can deliver a far more valuable set of results than a semi-random group of internet users.

Crowdsourcing your brand can lead to unpleasant outcomes.

Customer Churn: The entire focus of testing is to make sure that your product is as smooth as possible when it’s released. Relying on crowdsourcing can lead to significant customer churn due to unresolved bugs. All of the marketing efforts it took to make users choose your product will be wasted if there are bugs whenever your release a new version of your product.

Technical issues: Crowdsourced testers are compensated if they find bugs or issues within your application. Generally, most testers are not as qualified as test engineers and cannot deduce the core root issues within your application. Hiring crowdsourced testers may lead to you overlooking the fundamental issues that are causing bugs. This will continue repeatedly until the core issues are resolved.

Confidentiality: One of the biggest drawbacks of crowdsourcing your testing is the breach and lack of confidentiality. When you crowdsource your testing, there’s no incentive for testers to be loyal to your brand. This can lead to the leakage of sensitive business information and other trade secrets. A competitor can offer one of your crowdsourced testers money in exchange for critical information. This can lead to the demise of your business.

Automate All the Things!

Lastly, there’s automation. Automation really means using test automation, AI or Machine Learning software to perform a task. If you believe what you read, then literally everything can be automated – especially “low skill” activities like data scrubbing, sending emails and software testing.

There are 2 challenges to successfully automating anything with these tools.

  1. Automation Tools don’t run themselves. Someone has to instruct or configure the tools. Even then, an incorrect or old instruction can cause a bucket load of False Positives. This might cause you to spend more time diagnosing and fixing your automation tool than just performing the task with a human in the first place. If you’re going to use Test Automation, you might want to consider that you’re writing more software to test your current software. Who’s going to watch the watcher?
  2. Website Testing is a “low skill” activity. I beg to disagree with this idea. Yes, Testers, doing what they are told and manually running a known set of regression tests for the 32nd time is a low skill activity that should be automated. But, that’s not a common problem and probably not your problem. Most website testing challenges aren’t known and aren’t covered by a test case that you know about ahead of time. Most of the defects discovered during website testing aren’t covered by a test case. Testers will seldom find these defects because they aren’t obvious. Test Engineers, however, will definitely find them! Quality and Test Engineering are definitely not “low skill” activities.

Automated testing provides several hurdles for business prior to even getting testing started.

Initial cost: The initial cost of using automated testing is very high. For automated testing to work properly for your products, it will have to be configured and tailored to your business operations. This configuration along with the staff needed to make this happen often costs more than the budget for testing. In large corporations this may be cost-effective, but for the average business this is very detrimental.

Maintenance: Automated testing isn’t a one-time service, it requires continuous upgrades and maintenance just like many parts of your business. The key difference in maintaining automated testing is that it will likely require additional personnel on top of your current payroll. The hardware, software and staff needed to maintain automated systems will easily add five figures to your current payroll each month.

Expertise: In-house automated testing will require the additional staff you hire to have technical backgrounds. Basic programming skills and knowledge will be required because scripts will need to be completely understood. The tools that are used for automated testing may have their own defects, so staff must be able to resolve that as well.

So, before you drink the flavored punch that say’s “automate all the things”, double check your goals and constraints. You might not have the time and budget to “automate all the things” and you probably won’t be happy with your first set of outcomes, either.

The Things You Really Want

What you really want with website testing services is confidence and speed. You’re at the end of a long journey building a new website and you’re not in the mood for a long, drawn out, testing phase just when you’re ready to launch you new “look”.

You’re probably not sure but suspect that there might be a few bugs or defects in your website. You’ve done your testing but still aren’t sure. You want to know that your website will be flawless for everyone that visits.

You’re also probably tired from all the hard work and concentration that it’s taken to get your website to this stage. You’re ready to be done and you’re not in the mood for a bunch of back-and-forth with a website testing company that just doesn’t understand where you are and what you want.

When we talk with you about your project, we’ll get a keen understanding of your risks and concerns and build a plan and proposal to complete our work quickly and efficiently so that you can move your website project forward and claim your new customers and prospects.

At TESTCo, we believe in honoring promises. We take the time to make sure our testing work focuses on and delivers the value you need to achieve your business goals. Here’s a page about our website and web app testing services.

We want to help you achieve your business and technology goals.

offshore software testing

Offshore Software Testing: What, How and Why

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Offshore software testing is on the verge of being “commoditized”. If you subscribe to this notion and are not a software QA expert, you may be making a costly mistake.

The Maturity of Offshore Software Testing

Offshore software testing – where software testing services (and many others from manufacturing to IT support to legal work) are delivered from another country and possibly another timezone – is at least 30 years old. There is very little that is “new” in the pursuit of better labor and lower costs.  In fact, some aspects of offshore services have seen a “recall” to the home shores in the recent years as cultural challenges reduce labor quality and prices increase in other countries as the standard of living rises. Almost everyone has a personal horror story about an aspect of offshoring. The relentless pursuit of lower costs has now met and must confront the quality and value of the services received.  In most, cases, the value received no longer justifies the cost paid. But, there are still nuggets of gold to be found – if you know how to find them!

What is Offshore Software Testing?

The “What” of offshore software testing – writing, running and reporting software tests – is a simple one. The desired outcome from software testing is a positive or negative indication on a test case. Almost anyone can be trained to do all or some portion of this work. In most cases, the goal of the work is some volume of activity and outcomes – test case and test run coverage are commonly used metrics for this activity.

“No Defects Found” Does not Mean that Your Software is Good Enough for Your Customers

The problem with using “What” as your primary criteria for offshore software testing is that it relies on a false assumption that some “number of defects found” based on “test cases run” results in high quality software. This is not always the case and the fundamental difference between software testing and software quality! It is almost impossible to write and run test cases for every possible combination of features within your software application. Just because no defects were found does not mean that your software is good enough for your customers!

How is Offshore Software Testing Done?

The “How” of software testing covers methods, standards, tools and procedures used to perform the writing, running and reporting of software tests (the “What”). When software testing work is performed, how it is performed, who will perform the testing and where it is performed – all influence the value of the outcomes. There is a big difference between a newbie running a set of tests someone else created during a normal workday and an experienced Test Engineer building and executing a manual functional test plan over the weekend.

Both produce standard software testing outcomes (the “What”). One is more valuable if you are in a situation where money is more important than time. The other is more valuable if time is more important than money. Clearly understanding this is critical to making a wise choice for an offshore software testing partner.

Sure, methods, standard, tools and procedures are useful – we use them frequently at TESTCo. But, using methods or procedures as a primary selection criteria has a big potential flaw – not all methods or procedures are implemented the same and your definition of “Agile” may not be the same as someone else’s. Putting an offshore software testing partner’s Agile Software Testing method into your Agile Software Development Team’s process may or may not work!

Check out these reports and case studies

Why Use Offshore Software Testing

There are two good reasons to considering using offshore software testing.

One reason is to pay as little as possible for a commodity service that you need. We don’t subscribe to this notion for several reasons.

  • The lowest cost seldom equates to best value – this results in an expense rather than an investment.
  • The talent required to deliver lowest cost service is typically not experienced and trained in software testing – you can do better.
  • Low cost talent delivering commoditized services does not allow us to deliver the Real Value Every Day that we are committed to.

We optimize for talent first and cost second so that we can offer very talented software test engineers coupled with QA managers at a reasonable price.

The second reason is to honor your promise to deliver software that your customers love and depend on.

We believe that all software has an inherent promise to the customer of distinct value – increased revenue, cost savings or enjoyment in exchange for some amount of money.  Bold promises are needed to attract and retain customers in today’s crowded marketplace.  Bold promises require investment and talent.  Weak promises don’t require much and seldom survive very long.  Building great software requires unique talent – analysts, developers and quality assurance.  Scrimp on any of those three aspects and your delivery on your promise will suffer.

The TESTCo Difference

At TESTCo, we believe talented software test engineers trump software testers at least 2 to 1, if not more. We only test software and we only hire experienced software test engineers.  If you are struggling to release quality software that your customers appreciate and depend on, we have the people that can help you honor your promise to your customers.

If you think you need help with offshore software testing, we’d enjoy the opportunity to learn more about your needs and explain how TESTCo can help you honor your promises to your customers. A quick 30 minute phone call is usually more than enough to learn about your situation and answer all of your questions about how TESTCo can be your offshore software testing partner.