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As technology advances, each enterprise moves its business from physical offices to websites and Web applications to achieve online growth. This brings a series of updated testing techniques to cater to the best products or services for end users. Before launching any software, website, or application, many testing techniques (such as cross-browser testing, user acceptance testing, regression testing) have become obvious, in order to ensure the best user experience and stable functionality, another test technology is exploratory testing.

Unlike other testing techniques, exploratory testing does not have a fixed set of methods that testers must follow, but instead, testers have the complete freedom to discover that products / services improve over time. This is more like continuous improvement over time and the development of a website or application.

Let's further explore what inquiry testing is, why it is so important, how to conduct inquiry testing, the challenges it faces, the details of the advantages and disadvantages, and the reasons why it is different from other scripting technologies, interim testing and its future.

What is exploratory testing?

As the name implies, exploratory testing is based on the tester's ability to explore a website or application to make it better over time. This is an important activity in agile software development, and the development and test cycles are closely integrated.

Although the exploratory test is a black box test, it considers the software as a whole and does not involve the details of the elements that make up the software. This is a very spontaneous testing method in which testers learn, understand, explore and test software at the same time in an unplanned way. In contrast to scripted testing of test plans, test cases, and test steps, exploratory testing is carried out as testers discover and learn about websites or applications themselves.

It emphasizes the creativity, autonomy and skills of testers, which is different from other testing methods that follow a fixed methodology.

Why exploratory testing is important

Exploratory testing is an important activity in the practice of agile software development methods. In the agile sprint, the software is developed by releasing multiple versions every few weeks. This means that the time for development and testing is limited and needs to be completed in a shorter time. Therefore, in order to adapt to agility, exploratory testing carries out small iterations, because it takes less time, so automated testing can be used to supplement the quality assurance of each version of the software.

Automated testing is responsible for regression testing, while exploratory testing focuses on testing the new features of the upcoming version. It ensures powerful functionality, a better user experience, and notifies the team about possible problems by constantly learning and using each version.

How to conduct exploratory testing

Exploratory testing involves a close combination of discovery, investigation and learning. Because it is not planned in advance, unlike scripted testing, in scripted testing, test plans, test cases and test steps are developed before testing the software.

In exploratory testing, a small amount of time is spent on planning. Instead, devote the maximum time to test execution. To perform exploratory testing, all you need to do is highlight the scenarios you plan to cover as part of the test plan phase.

Although most of the focus is on test execution, key learning that takes place at the same time throughout the test process will be implemented during test execution to enhance the software.

During exploratory test execution, key functions are identified by exploring and discovering software, and reported defects are recorded. These defects will be further analyzed to address and enhance product services.

Exploratory testing is conducted in this way for the learning, test design, execution, and analysis of agile software development.

What are the different types of exploratory tests?

Based on the exploratory testing of this method, the following are different types of exploratory testing techniques:

1. Scene-based exploratory testing

Scenario-based exploratory testing is what happens when users browse and test specific scenarios or functions. Based on the learning and observation of the website or application and its functions, testers can use exploratory testing techniques to explore and discover defects in different situations. They tend to use scheme-based exploratory tests to check for different possibilities.

two。 Policy-based exploratory testing

This type of exploratory testing is based on strategies such as boundary value analysis, risk assessment, and equivalent techniques. To perform policy-based exploratory testing, testers must be familiar with the functionality of a Web site or application so that they can operate efficiently to achieve better results.

3. Free exploratory test

Freestyle exploratory testing is mainly used when testers want to do a quick smoke test. As the name implies, it does not have any clear test method, scenario, or test scope; instead, testers investigate defects in a free manner. In order to effectively perform freestyle exploratory testing, testers must be familiar with the website or application so that they can easily grasp defects without any detailed plan.

In this way, as a tester, you can use different types of exploratory testing techniques to thoroughly examine your website or application to ensure improved products or services for a better end-user experience in each release.

Advantages and disadvantages of exploratory testing

Exploratory testing has become a ready-made testing method. Here are the advantages of using exploratory testing techniques when testing your application or website:

It doesn't require a lot of test planning, which is usually time-consuming, which slows down the whole process.

It is very consistent with the business availability and domain of the product / service.

Exploratory testing is very effective for short-term projects.

It goes hand in hand with agile software development.

It often contains errors that have not been discovered when testing with other technologies.

This is useful when the requirements document is not available.

One of the biggest disadvantages of exploratory testing technology is that it completely depends on the skills of testers, so if the testers' technical level is not high, it can not produce the desired results. Another disadvantage is that due to the lack of scripts, it is often difficult to trace back to test cases and test again.

What makes exploratory testing difficult?

Although exploratory testing seems very easy, it also faces a series of challenges in the process of implementation. These are some of the challenges encountered during exploratory testing:

Because of the lack of documentation, it is a daunting task to trace defects often, especially after a period of time.

A lot of test execution depends on the skills of the testers, and it may be difficult to get the desired results if the testers are not so diligent.

It may not be suitable for large projects with long schedules, because without proper formal documentation, it may be difficult to cover all possible areas.

It requires good domain knowledge and better instructions in order to delve into the product and find errors and defects.

It is difficult to review test cases in the future.

By overcoming the above challenges during exploratory testing, you can use agile methods to enhance cross-version products / services.

The fallacy of exploratory testing

Exploratory testing has many fallacies. Let's debunk some common fallacies related to exploratory testing.

1. Exploratory testing is the same as temporary testing

Exploratory testing is a more formal type of test, while ad hoc testing is conducted on a more random side. Temporary is based on requirements, while exploratory is based on workflow testing technology. The difference between exploratory testing and impromptu testing is obvious.

two。 Exploratory testing cannot be quantified

Just because the test plan is not documented does not mean that exploratory tests are undocumented and cannot be quantified. In fact, it focuses more on test execution, and the defects that have been explored have been fully documented. Therefore, exploratory testing can be effectively quantified.

3. There are no plans for exploratory testing at all.

It's just that there is not too much time and importance allocated to the test plan in the exploratory test, but the scenarios and strategies are planned before the exploratory test is executed. Unlike other scripting technologies, they are well documented, which does not mean that exploratory testing is not planned at all.

4. Exploratory testing takes more time than scripted testing

A common misconception about exploratory testing is that it takes more time than scripted testing, but in fact, exploratory testing takes less time because it saves all the time of test planning and scripting in exploratory testing. Because of its less consuming features, exploratory tests are used in agile methods, where the duration between two agile sprints is reduced to a week or less.

5. Exploratory testing is only suitable for small teams

Exploratory testing is generally thought to be limited to small teams, but this is a misunderstanding. Larger teams have also conducted exploratory testing effectively, working with other testing methods in agile software development.

6. Exploratory testing applies only to agile teams

Although most agile teams use exploratory testing techniques with automated testing, this obviously does not mean that exploratory testing is limited to agile teams. In fact, any software development team that is looking for a quick test session while exploring and understanding the website / application agenda can effectively use exploratory testing. For this reason, exploratory testing is usually very popular in startups.

Don't be confused with script testing techniques

Different from the traditional script testing technology, exploratory testing is an unconventional testing technology. Although scripted testing techniques can be used to pre-determine test cases from requirements documents, these steps are not followed for exploratory testing.

Unlike script tests, which rely mainly on confirmed script tests, exploratory tests rely more on testers to investigate websites / applications while browsing. Exploratory testing provides testers with a free and autonomous way to operate in their own way without having to follow any scripts contrary to scripted testing techniques. Different from exploratory testing, documentation is still one of the key points of scripted testing technology.

Exploratory testing in this way is a free, out-of-the-box testing technique, which is mainly based on discovery and involves less planning and documentation, thus reducing time-consuming and different from scripted testing.

Don't be confused with ad hoc testing

Although exploratory testing may look like ad hoc testing because of its freestyle testing, in fact, exploratory testing is very different from ad hoc testing. Although ad hoc testing is a completely random testing method, exploratory testing is more about formally determining the solution to be tested.

Ad hoc testing requires preliminary learning, while exploratory testing only involves browsing the website / application and is conducted at the same time as the test. For ad hoc testing, required documentation is required, while exploratory testing is not required. Unlike ad hoc testing, exploratory testing requires a workflow to perform the test. In this way, exploratory testing is different from ad hoc testing.

Is there a future for exploratory testing?

Gone are the days when scripted testing was the only way to test user acceptance. As technology moves toward a user-centric direction, even test technologies must be adapted in the same way to enhance the user experience in each upcoming release. This user-centered software development and agile approach provides a bright future for exploratory testing and automated testing of software products and services.

Given the time constraints for the release of the new version, exploratory testing will be an ideal solution for use with automated testing to ensure the quality of fully functional, powerful, stable, and user-centric software.

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