Software Testing Services Guide

Software testing helps businesses release bug-free, high-quality, and reliable software applications to end-users, and finding the ideal software testing services can make a world of difference.

Custom software has become increasingly commonplace in the past several years, especially for organizations in highly regulated industries, businesses with complex contract management, and enterprises with complex billing or work plans.

By leveraging the power of customized software, businesses can tailor technology around their goals, adopt security protocols that meet the organization’s needs, and carve a competitive advantage. However, as businesses try to keep up with the rush to develop new software, push updates, or test code along the way, many are realizing that they don’t have the workforce to keep pace. 

Hiring software testing services can close the skill gap caused by a shortage of testers, improve the quality of the finished product, and increase the speed of software development.

This guide will cover everything you need to know about how to hire software testing services to help you ship the highest-quality software application.

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What is Software Testing?

The process involves validating that a software application is bug-free, satisfies user requirements, and meets technical specifications. 

Software testing primarily measures the software's functionality, specification, and performance. While the testing process depends on the goal of an organization, typical tasks include:

• Defining the test environment
  
• Developing test cases
  
• Writing test scripts
  
• Analyzing test results
  
• Submitting defect reports
  

A software testing service provider can handle all the software-testing tasks to free up time and resources for your development team to redirect to other important goals. 

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5 Benefits of Software Testing

Testing software before releasing it to end users has innumerable advantages for a business’s software production. Here are the five biggest benefits you can get from testing software: 

1. Enhanced quality assurance: Testing software helps you ensure your application product meets the intended quality and standard. The tests enable your organization to identify and fix defects, bugs, and errors before releasing a software product to the final customer. 
   
2. Improved user experience: Customer experience enhancement efforts — such as assessing navigation, features, user interface, and customer experience — improve usability, functionality, and performance. Testing exposes issues in a software product that would otherwise compromise user experience.
   
3. Increased security: Software security is critical, especially if the application will handle sensitive data. Testing checks for vulnerabilities by simulating attacks to find and fix security weaknesses before malicious actors exploit them. It also evaluates whether your security measures meet industry standards. 
   
4. Faster time-to-market: Businesses that can roll out bug-free updates the fastest win the market. Testing software streamlines your development process, leading to quicker releases. The testing team identifies issues before the official launch, reducing the time spent debugging and reworking development projects.
   
5. Cost-effectiveness: Testing software helps in early defect detection, which is less expensive to fix than it would be after releasing a faulty software application. Besides, well-tested software is less likely to require extensive maintenance, reducing costs for post-release bug fixes and updates.
   

What Services Do Software Testing Vendors Provide?

A software testing vendor can offer various services depending on business needs. Here are some typical services a provider offers, the responsibilities involved, and the goal for each.

• Acceptance Testing
  
• Beta Testing
  
• Integration Testing
  
• Load Testing
  
• Performance Testing
  
• Stress Testing
  

Acceptance Testing

Acceptance testing evaluates whether a software product meets the end-user requirements and matches your business’s needs.

During acceptance testing, your software testing vendor writes acceptance tests and sets them up to examine how the software behaves in a simulated production environment. They record and compare the results to the end user's requirements and your business goals.

Your service provider can engage with end-users to gather feedback to help improve product performance and user experience.

Beta Testing

Beta testing is the release of a nearly complete product to a limited real audience to test it and uncover bugs or usability issues that internal testing didn’t expose. A beta test allows real users to interact with a product in a production environment to find bugs or issues before the official release. 

During a beta test, your software testing team selects a target audience that reflects the diversity of your end users and gives them clear instructions on how to sign up and what’s expected of them. Your vendor will then monitor the beta testing process, support beta testers, and address critical issues.

Your vendor will collect data on your product’s performance, usability, and overall user experience, then review it and recommend solutions to identified issues to your developing team.

Integration Testing

Integration testing assesses the correctness of the interface between two software units, components, or modules. The test aims to uncover issues in the interface between integrated units because different modules are usually coded with different programmers but need to interact seamlessly with each other.

During integration testing, a software testing vendor will integrate various modules of your application and then evaluate their behavior as a combined unit. They’ll then verify that the individual units communicate with each other properly and are working as intended after integration.

Your vendor can do the integration test using dummy programs that substitute any missing module and simulate data communication between modules for testing purposes.

Load Testing

Load testing is the process of evaluating how a software product behaves when multiple users access it simultaneously. It tests your software’s response during normal and high loads to determine the maximum number of transactions or users the system can handle.

Load tests assure your organization that its software can handle the expected usage levels and identify potential issues when the maximum load is exceeded.

To do a load test, your vendor will simulate many concurrent users, numerous requests, and heavy network traffic. They’ll then measure and analyze your software’s performance under these parameters. 

Performance Testing

Performance testing examines software's stability, speed, responsiveness, and scalability when several people use it simultaneously. It aims to verify your application’s output, speed, processing power, network bandwidth usage, data transfer velocity, memory utilization, maximum concurrent users, command response time, and workload efficiency.

You can use performance testing results to determine whether your applications satisfy performance requirements under peak traffic events.

A team of professional software testers can help identify performance test environments and define acceptable performance criteria depending on your organization’s goals, constraints, and thresholds. Then, they will design and run a performance test, monitor results, and share the findings with your project team.

Stress Testing

Stress testing evaluates software’s behavior when under intense usage or system loads. It confirms whether your software is reliable and functional and if it can recover from overload.

Software testing service vendors use stress testing to discover vulnerabilities in software security, determine risk, identify corrupt data, and resolve memory leaks. Stress testing results can help your organization prepare for situations that can cause overload. 

To perform stress testing, most vendors will define the level of performance your company is testing for. They’ll then create automatic scripts that replicate real-time human users of your program to test for overload. The team will then examine the result of the stress that the overload has induced. Your company will then discover areas in the software that suffer from overload.

How To Assess Software Testing Services

The choice of metrics to assess varies depending on the specific goals, industry, and nature of software testing that a provider offers. Your organization should select metrics that align with its strategic objectives and regularly analyze data to drive improvements.

Some common metrics to assess software testing services include:

• Defect detention rate (DDR): The defect detection rate shows the effectiveness of a testing process in exposing defects or issues. The metric is important as it exposes weak links in your software testing approach, and you can use it to evaluate the performance of the tester team.
  
• Defect severity and priority: This metric measures a defect's impact on software operation and the urgency with which you should address it. Assigning defect priority helps your development team create an order to fix bugs based on the urgency and impact of the issue on the project's overall goal. 
  
• Test execution efficiency: Measures the percentage of test cases you run successfully within a given timeframe compared to the total number of tests planned. The metric provides insights into the testing phase progress and how quickly an organization runs cases.
  
• Test automation coverage: The extent to which automated tests cover your application's different functionalities and features. It measures how well your automated tests cover your software.
  
• Regression test past rate: The metric measures the percentage of regression tests that passed successfully after an organization has updated its software. Businesses use regression test past rates to ensure new changes don’t introduce new defects or break existing functionality.
  
• Time-to-resolve-defects rate: Monitoring the average time taken to identify and resolve a defect can help brands gauge the efficiency of the defect resolution process. 
  

What is a Software Testing Team?

Each team member working for a software testing vendor brings specific expertise. 

Here are some of the most common roles that comprise a software testing team and how they can impact your software tests:

• QA Lead: The head of the quality assurance (QA) team assesses services and products to ensure the software quality meets the required standard. They direct, plan, coordinate, and report quality assurance activities.
  
• Test Analyst: They design and execute tests based on company requirements and software specifications.
  
• Automation Tester: They design, develop, and maintain automated test scripts to enhance the efficiency and coverage of the testing process.
  
• Performance Tester: This person evaluates the software's performance, scalability, and stability under various conditions. They design performance test scenarios to meet the documented data.
  
• Security Tester: This person identifies software vulnerabilities and security flaws to protect the application against security threats.
  
• Test Manager: A test manager oversees the entire testing process. They develop testing strategies, allocate resources, and ensure testing activities align with the project goal.
  

What To Look for When Hiring a Software Testing Provider

Hiring the best software testing talent remains a persistent struggle for many businesses because every vendor claims to be the perfect fit. 

While you can probe testing skills with a test or other function-specific take-home projects, uncovering all the nuances of software testing can be challenging — especially when every candidate looks good on paper.

However, understanding why you want to hire a professional tester can guide your software testing hiring process and narrow your search. Your budget is also important, as it’ll help you weed out vendors outside your price range.

Criteria for Hiring a Software Testing Team

Whether you hire testers internally or outsource to a software testing vendor, finding the best partner comes down to what matters most to your company’s development team. You can begin shortlisting potential software testing providers by comparing features, rates, and client testimonials on sites like Clutch to get unbiased insights into a vendor’s expertise, work quality, and ability to deliver on their promises.

During the interview, ask questions to help you narrow down your search further. Here are a few questions to ask when interviewing software testing service providers:

10 Questions To Ask When Hiring a Software Testing Team

1.  What’s your level of experience in the software testing industry?
   
2. Can you provide examples of similar projects you’ve worked on?
   
3. What testing services do you offer (e.g., performance, security, automation, functions)?
   
4. Do you have experience with the technologies and platforms used in our project?
   
5. What’s your testing process and methodology?
   
6. How do you ensure the quality and consistency of your testing efforts?
   
7. What metrics do you track, and how do you report them?
   
8. Can you describe your approach to test planning and test case design?
   
9. What testing tools and frameworks do you use?
   
10. How do you ensure the security and confidentiality of our data and intellectual property?
    

Roll Out Higher Quality Software in Less Time With Professional Software Testing Services

To stay competitive, organizations need to quickly deliver high-quality software and updates to win markets. 

Hiring a professional test team can free your development team’s time, creative energy, and resources that would otherwise be used in writing unit tests, looking for bugs, and collecting test data. They can redirect these resources to push new software and updates more often to keep your business competitive.

However, you must do your due diligence to hire the ideal software testing services. That starts with searching for top software testing service providers on Clutch.

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