Exploratory testing is a powerful technique in software testing that enables testers to dynamically explore the Web Browser Online and software applications to discover defects and issues that other testing methods could likely miss.
As the software development life cycle grows in complexity and cloud testing becomes more important, the use of online testing tools and platforms is becoming more mandatory than ever to better conduct exploratory testing.
Exploratory testing has grown to be one of the most important aspects of software testing, primarily because it can help reveal defects and problems in a software application that has gone unnoticed by the traditional methods of testing.
It is considered a manual software testing procedure where testers have to access a program and in the process look into its features, and functions, and gradually discover or point out the different bugs or defects surfacing.
Online testing tools kick-start the process and, in the end, reduce the time and effort required to detect defects and problems. Features like bug-tracking tools, test management facilities, and session recording facilities ease exploratory testing.
In this article, we go through how the utilization of online tools ameliorates the exploratory testing process.
The Role of Online Testing Tools in Exploratory Testing
Online testing tools are dynamic resources that play a very important role in enhancing exploratory testing by allowing testers to identify defects and faults efficiently and effectively. They fall into three primary categories, bug-tracking tools, test management tools, and session recording tools. This means testers can become effective bug hunters, ensuring they leave no defects unhunted.
Bug Tracking Tools
One of the examples that best describes exploratory tests is bug-tracking tools. Centralized stores for any defects disclosed, allow software testers to detail a problem extensively, facilitating an easier tracking and modifying process. Let’s gain deeper insight into what functionalities make these tools so important in exploratory testing,
Effortless Capture and Documentation
Bug tracking tools provide a user-friendly interface for testers to log bugs developed during exploratory sessions. They include details like bug description, severity level, reproducibility steps, and expected behavior.
Testers can attach screenshots or screen recordings for visual representation, ensuring developers have a deep understanding of the bug and efficient troubleshooting and fixing.
Enhanced Collaboration and Communication
Bug tracking tools facilitate efficient communication and collaboration between testers and developers. They allow testers to assign bugs to targeted developers, assigning the task to the right person. These tools also facilitate transparent communication through comments, allowing testers to provide additional information and facilitate easy bug resolution.
Real-Time Progress Tracking and Visibility
Exploratory testing, a free-form technique, requires transparency and accountability. Bug tracking tools offer real-time dashboards for tracking bug progress, enabling testers to identify critical issues and ensure zero bugs are ignored. Developers can manage their workload through these dashboards, enabling effective bug-fixation efforts.
Integration with Other Testing Tools
Modern bug-tracking tools have excellent integrations with other testing tools employed in exploratory testing. Integration with test management tools helps link bugs found back to the specific exploratory test charters, which gives useful context to developers.
In addition, integration with session recording tools means direct attachment of such recordings to bug reports for further clarity, enabling an even easier process of debugging.
Also Read: Building a Robust Mobile Testing Infrastructure with Jenkins and Appium
Test Management Tools
Test management tools provide a structured framework and guide for the exploratory testers in their journey. While exploratory testing thrives on its spontaneity and creativity, a bit of organization never hurts anyone testing efficiently and thoroughly.
Here’s how to make it easy for exploratory testers to traverse through their sessions with greater illumination and effect:
Exploratory Test Charter Creation
Test management tools allow for the creation of exploratory test charters that can serve as a blueprint for the entire exploratory testing sessions. These charters outline the scope within which you are expected to test, like the targeted functionalities, potential exploration areas, and specific criteria based on which you would check the application’s behavior.
Test Step Logging and Detailed Note-Taking
The exploratory session involves analyzing the application’s functionality, and test management tools allow testers to critically document findings. They can log test steps, and responses, and take detailed notes, capturing their thinking processes and insights.
This detailed documentation serves as a resource for future tests and regression testing, providing a clear historical record of the application’s behavior.
Integration with Bug Tracking Tools
Seamless integration between the test management tool and the bug tracking tool is essential for efficient exploratory testing. Whenever a bug is encountered during exploration, the tester, without any hassle, can raise a bug report within the tracking tool directly from the testing interface.
This will save manual efforts toward data entry and make sure all relative details, including steps and screenshots for the test, are automatically populated within the bug report.
Reporting and Analytics for Improved Decision-Making
Test management tools offer solid reporting capabilities that provide meaningful insights into the testing process. Testers can obtain a test summary report describing the number of carried-out exploratory sessions, the number of found defects, and the overall test coverage.
Session Recording Tools
Session recording tools are the ultimate secret weapon in exploratory testing. They help to record every step that a tester has followed to explore the application.
By creating a record of what has been done in the test, the session recordings happen to be useful in a lot of ways:
Replicating Elusive Bugs
Session recording tools help testers avoid frustration by recording every step of their actions, mouse clicks, and screen changes. This detailed recording allows for easy identification of the root causes of bugs, allowing for easy reproduction back to the problem’s initial location.
This not only saves time and effort in defect identification but also ensures the debug team has a working understanding of the bug’s behavior for a successful fix.
Sharing Insights and Fostering Collaboration
While exploratory testing is a very individual activity, sharing insights with and collaborating among members of your development team is where real power is at. Session recordings go on to bridge this gap because a clear visual representation of the line of thought for a tester, along with the bugs arising from this line of thought, makes it easier.
Furthermore, recordings can be shared among other testers for knowledge transfer and brain-sharing in sessions, consequentially resulting in more bug identification or better test approaches.
Training and Onboarding New Testers
Training and onboarding new testers is usually a very time-consuming process. Session recordings of experienced testers can be used to a great extent for training purposes.
New testers can gain insight into effective exploratory testing techniques by viewing how experienced testers handle the application and potentially navigate areas that could be explored.
Recordings can describe the various types of testing scenarios, how to document findings, and can even demonstrate using different testing tools within the exploratory testing workflow. This helps speed up the onboarding of new testers and guarantees a consistent, high-quality approach to exploratory testing across your organization.
Improving Test Coverage and Exploratory Techniques
Session recordings provide a unique opportunity for testers to perform a self-evaluation of their exploratory testing practices. By reviewing their recordings, testers can identify parts of the application where they might not have explored all possible paths or just skipped some functions.
This self-reflection paves the way for continuous improvement in techniques used by exploratory testing, thus ensuring thorough test coverage during the software development lifecycle.
Scalable and remote testing features come through cloud-based testing software, opening access to a broad array of web browsers and devices for exploratory testing.
LambdaTest is a cloud-based AI-powered automation testing platform with a suite of features to make exploratory testing more effective. Testers can run Selenium, Cypress, Puppeteer, Playwright, and Appium automation tests on a secure and reliable cloud-based infrastructure here.
The platform gives instant on-demand access to more than 3000 desktop and mobile environments for back-to-back compatibility testing of browsers and apps.
LambdaTest also provides features such as Auto-Healing to fight common issues when working with flaky tests and unexpected failures. The platform automatically recovers from certain failures without manual intervention, helping users nullify them.
Enhancing Exploratory Testing: Benefits of Leveraging Online Testing Tools
By strategically integrating online testing tools testers can unlock its real potential. The tools work as multipliers and help testers ensure that they are relentless hunters and that the software is produced with outstanding quality. Here are the enormous benefits of upholding exploratory testing,
Enhanced Productivity
Features like the bug tracking of auto-populated fields and session recordings with one-click capture do away with the need for manual documentation, saving the tester’s time and effort. Similarly, pre-designed exploratory test charters in test management tools provide a launching pad for exploration.
This way, the tester can jump to the middle of things without wasting time during the planning stage. This means a substantial increase in overall test productivity, allowing the test engineer to identify and document the defects at a quicker pace.
Improved Collaboration
Online testing tools facilitate the system between these two teams by acting as a medium for free information exchange. Bug tracking tools, with comment sections and assignable bug reports, ensure transparent communication about bugs found during exploration.
Comments, with detailed descriptions and steps to reproduce, accompanied by screenshots or even recordings, can be accessed by developers to quickly get into the gist of the bug.
This leads to a collaborative environment where the tester teams up with the developers to solve the issue within no time. Further, session recordings shared in the context of a discussion give developers a real representation of the bug, leaving no ambiguity on how it’s going to be fixed and thus leading to a fast resolution.
Increased Efficiency
Online prototyping tools are calculative with automation capabilities that make sure the process of exploratory testing is to the best of its efficiency. Being able to automatically get screenshots or make a recording of specific test steps significantly enhances the efficiency with which testers can explore more challenging areas of the application and maximize test coverage.
Providing Better Test Coverage
One of the hallmarks of effective exploratory testing is thorough coverage of the entire application. Online testing tools give the flexibility to testers to cast the net wide and explore more and more scenarios and edge cases.
Cloud-based testing platform LambdaTest has a huge array of devices and browsers that help to increase coverage areas in cases where the physical device farms have limitations. Testers can check the behavior of the application on several devices to ensure a seamless user experience is delivered across devices, operating systems, and screen resolutions.
Also Read: Creative Strategies for Simulating Safari on Windows for Advanced Mobile Testing
Conclusion
In conclusion, using online testing tools enhances exploratory testing. The tools provide testers with the resources to identify defects and issues fully, ensuring that software applications go through comprehensive quality checking.
When online testing tools are integrated into exploratory testing processes, it helps organizations improve productivity, collaboration, efficiency, and test coverage, thereby providing quality software products to their end users.