Bug hunting, or exploratory testing, certainly isn’t the most glamorous aspect of QA.
As part of a bug hunt, testers explore and use your software in depth, just like real users, to discover stability and performance issues that might have escaped your existing QA team’s notice.
It’s easy to write off bug testing as unnecessary. After all, haven’t you already identified the key bugs and problems with your application? However, bug hunting has several major benefits that make it an important, and often essential, part of your QA testing process.
Here are four reasons your QA team should carry out a thorough bug hunt before you release your software.
You’ll Discover Bugs, Often in Large Numbers
Before you run a bug hunt, it’s easy to underestimate how many errors there are in your app’s code. Data from a 2013 Coverity Scan analysis of more than 450 million lines of code suggests that there are, on average, .69 bugs per 1,000 lines of software code.
This sounds great, but remember that many bugs aren’t discoverable by the Coverity Scan, and that the test itself is a scan of commercial software. Other sources estimate that there might be anywhere from four to 10 bugs per 1,000 lines of code, on average.
The longer your code, the more likely your software contains undiscovered bugs that affect performance, stability and security.
In a bug hunt, explorative testers will dig into your application in detail to find and report on the bugs that you don’t know about. You’ll receive a detailed analysis of your software’s defects for your development team to fix before release, preventing users from encountering issues.
Tracking Down Bugs Outside Your Usual QA Testing Scope
Traditional QA testing is ideal for making sure the key features of your application function properly and are devoid of major bugs and problems.
Despite this benefit, this type of testing has limitations. Although you’ll discover most bugs in your software’s key features, bugs that are outside the scope of your testing are more likely to go undiscovered (and unfixed) than identified.
Since bug hunting is all about exploring your application, you’ll end up discovering a greater number of bugs than you would through structured testing. As a result, you can fix more bugs and release higher quality software.
Great Results with Less Preparation
Don’t know where to begin your QA testing process?
If you’re new to software development and don’t have a detailed testing plan, bug hunting lets you discover critical bugs in your software in less time than a structured QA testing process.
Instead of having to prepare test criteria and identify priorities before you start QA testing, you’ll identify major bugs through bug hunting. From here, your team can revise and re-test to ensure they’re completely fixed before release.
Discover Bugs from a User’s Perspective
As a developer, it’s easy to view your software from a developer’s perspective and lose sight of the fact that its users are the ultimate judges of its performance. Bug hunting lets you view your software from a user’s perspective, complete with all of its flaws.
From form fields that aren’t as user friendly as they should be to security issues that aren’t easy to spot from a code perspective, a bug hunt gives you a user’s view of your app’s weaknesses, letting you take action to create the highest quality product possible.
