Basic and Advanced Software Testing Services: What's the Difference?

There is no need to repeat ourselves by pointing out how important QA engineers' contribution to the success of the software development projects is. But how this contribution influences your product exactly, why applying widely-accepted software testing techniques sometimes isn't enough for your project and what is to be done in that case? We are going to answer all these question right in this article.

When you order a mobile app or website delivery, QA testing services are usually included in the whole package of the development services. Do you know what exactly is being tested in your product and why the combination of actions, the software test engineer performs, can guarantee the quality of the product?

At Cleveroad, software testing services, which are an integral part of the development process, depend on the project we are working on and usually include the following QA testing types that allow to ensure the overall product's quality.

First of all, QA engineers that are assigned to the project perform the Requirement analysis. This lets us draw the PM's attention to controversial issues and, therefore, prevents some bugs and obviously reduces the estimate.

Acceptance testing. Once a Sprint, the QA team members involved into the project perform Acceptance testing, which is based on User Stories. The behavior of the software product should meet the requirements that were set at the beginning of the Sprint.

Smoke testing. This kind of testing is usually performed after software build (an executable program that can be used and tested). Software smoke test is necessary to make sure that the product starts and all it's important functions work fine.

Regression testing. Software code changes a few times during the software development lifecycle. That's a fact. Each time the source code is changed, whether it is because of adding features, fixing bugs, or migration to the other OS (database, web server or application server), the existing functionality should work properly.

Sanity testing. Software sanity testing is a subset of the Regression testing and is responsible for making sure that changed or added pieces of functionality haven't affected the functionality of the other components of the product. Okay, what is Sanity testing in software testing procedure then? So, Sanity testing is necessary to assure the product's stable work, even after minor changes in the code within a much shorter period of time than Regression software testing would require.

UI testing. Not only functionality requires testing efforts but also visual components. UI design is tested against the approved app screens, created during the design stage. This testing doesn't guarantee the complete equivalence of the product and mock-up, as different browsers, OS, devices can display the product differently. GUI software testing (graphical user interface testing) is usually performed visually, sometimes with specific tools if necessary.

Permission testing. Various groups of users working on the final product should have their own pre-defined permissions. For example, regular users can't have the administrator's access rights. That's why permission testing is essential.

Usability testing. Satisfied users and lower bounce rate are some of the benefits of usability testing. Based on user experience, testing engineers make suggestions on the improvement of interaction with the system.

Bug reporting and retesting. Frankly, this part of testing services is more than obvious and indispensable. If there's a bug, it has to be reported, fixed and the software product has to be retested it's that simple.

The types of QA testing listed above will surely guarantee an essential level of normal system performance and stable operation. But what if your app goes beyond conventional functionality or it's fail-safe performance is crucial?

How to know whether your product needs advanced testing when you create an app or a website? We've got a few tips for you.

• If you don't want to spend extra money on frequent updates because of system imperfections, it's better to pay once for advanced testing and launch updates only when you add new features.

• Users' satisfaction is your top priority. System failures can be annoying. Are you sure that your app's users will start it again?

If you want to elicit software defects in advance in order to save money and gain users' loyalty, read more to know how exactly it is done.

In addition to Basic QA testing services, the software projects can get Advanced QA services, which are listed below.

Sprint 0 QA activity. Instead of getting down to work after some of the features are already implemented, the QA team is involved much earlier during the Sprint Zero when they study the specification documents and wireframes. As a result, we prevent unfinished requirements and possible errors before coding, which reduces the overall expenses.

Requirements analysis is run before each Sprint as the tasks a more detailed and it helps detect possible bugs easier and faster.

The Advanced testing mode ensures pixel-perfect GUI software testing. It is performed using the verification of styles and overlaid stencils. Moreover, the software product is tested on various testing platforms devices, OS versions.

With the automation of Functional and Regression testing, QA engineers can test the product quickly. This approach is particularly useful for checking "difficult-to-understand' results. For example, to check the values of tables for mistakes and typos. It's also possible to launch a test with changeable parameters: one test and several versions of the input and expected data. With reports after each test run.

Automated testing for REST API. The application's Business Logic (BL) is normally exposed on the server side. That's why this automatic software testing is extremely important to receive the quickest possible results of the server's behavior and BL state under both positive and negative cases.

Compatibility testing of the product with other apps and system components. There was once a situation when the launched voice chat prevented the Alarm Clock app from starting.

Interrupt testing. This kind of testing is performed in the basic package of QA services. However, to ensure the stable work of your product under as many conditions as possible, we test the following test cases:

• Incoming / outgoing calls
• Incoming / outgoing messages 
• Reconnecting to the Internet (different Wi-Fi network, switching from Wi-Fi to 3G and vice versa) 
• Starting the native video / audio player 
• Disconnecting of the battery 
• Connecting a USB cable / charger 
• Device going to a sleep mode 
• Push notifications of third-party applications 

Load testing of the server by a given load. The response time should be no more than specified in the specifications.

Stress testing of the server by a load that is more than estimated. During the Stress test, software's "margin of safety" and the restoration of normal operations in case of failure is checked.

Security testing is necessary to protect the product against various attacks: SQL Injection, XSS vulnerability.

And finally, you can get your project and database filled with the test content, which is really helpful if you are going to present your MVP to investors or make a promo video of your product that is yet to be realized publicly.

The quality of the software is surely not kind of thing to compromise on and that's why at Cleveroad, we create all possible conditions to provide the level of software quality assurance services you need.

If you want to ensure an absolute quality of your software product, our experienced QA team is at your service. Drop a line to our managers to learn more how to get advanced QA testing services.