Exploratory Bug Testing
Get real insights into your product’s functionality. Let our Crowd check your digital product for bugs you never expected to find.
Advantages of Exploratory Bug Testing
With exploratory bug tests, you’re able to find bugs in places that might not be obvious. As our testers freely explore your digital product, they will use it from the perspective of a real customer and may find bugs you would never have thought existed.
Operational blindness and fragmented device landscape
You’re done with your internal quality assurance (QA), but still wonder if you might have missed an important software bug or other malfunctions?
Operational blindness is a big issue, as your users will always use your digital product differently than your developers or staff from other departments.
Show moreYou need a way to get insights on how your customers will use your product
Another challenge for you might be the continuously growing device landscape.
Testing software on all of the latest devices, operating systems, and browser versions requires an enormous amount of test planning, resources, and investment. Despite strict timelines, performing flexible and extensive tests are necessary to provide your users with the best digital experience possible.
Show lessExploratory Bug Testing of your software in the real world
Crowdtesting makes the difference by using the power of over 1,000,000 digital testing experts and a variety of over 1,500,000 devices directly at their fingertips.
This approach helps you reduce costs and transfers your testing into the real world – with real-world conditions and influencing factors.
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With our service, Exploratory Bug Testing, we give our crowdtesters the freedom to complete each step in their own way
This process of functional testing in the real world helps uncover bugs that lead to the most common errors, as well as special bugs that might not be covered by user stories or test cases.
Every detail of the testing process is documented and can be forwarded directly to your development team and their bug tracking solution (e.g. JIRA & Redmine). So, bug fixes can already start while the test is running – paving the way to a bug-free digital product.
Exploratory bug tests provide you with invaluable functionality feedback for your digital product from the point of view of your end-user. With exploratory testing, operational blindness is a thing of the past.
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“Testbirds helps us deliver more customer-friendly websites and keep them customer-friendly (…) Testbirds offer their testing solutions with the same flexibility and agility, which made us decide to embed their testing services continuously into our development cycle.”
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“Working with Testbirds led to us professionalising our testing process, as it forced us to critically examine our own testing structure. It definitely made our organisation more mature […]. Furthermore, crowdtesting has proven to be efficient. We can start testing on a Monday and see results on a Tuesday.”
Read case studyDo you have questions about Exploratory Bug Testing?
Would you like to have more information on how we can help you make your digital products even better? Just send us a message, one of our solution consultants will be happy to get in touch with you.
What is Exploratory Bug Testing?
First introduced in 1984 by Cem Kaner in his book ‘Testing Computer Software’, exploratory testing is defined as:
“a style of software testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimize the quality of his/her work by treating test-related learning, test design, test execution, and test result interpretation as mutually supportive activities that run in parallel throughout the project.”
So, what does exploratory bug testing mean?
An exploratory bug test lets testers look for bugs freely and creatively. There is no test script, no rigid plan – testers have personal freedom, which means this kind of bug testing places a lot of responsibility on the testers.
During the test, testers learn and iterate constantly, and find their own way to solve problems that may occur. Testers can always optimize their test run – the more experienced and creative a tester is, the more bugs he or she will find.
As the name suggests, exploratory bug testing is a functional test that encourages real-time practical thinking from the tester. Testers decide their next steps on-the-fly and continuously adapt them as they move deeper into the software of your digital product.
It’s this focus on discovery, investigation, and learning that makes exploratory bug testing a truly flexible and intuitive way to identify issues and improve the product’s overall quality – especially when time is limited, situations are unclear, or there’s a need to discover new scenarios and edge cases that a scripted test can miss.
If you’re looking for ad-hoc testing, simultaneous test design and execution, defect investigation, adaptive testing strategies, and highest levels of collaboration, exploratory bug testing is a proven solution that easily compliments other testing techniques.
The difference between an exploratory and structured bug test
When performing an exploratory bug test the testers are self-reliant in terms of how they approach the test. Exploratory testing focuses on testing as a “thinking” activity, so it’s much more customer-centric than structured tests.
Structured testing, also known as scripted testing, follows a specific test script with different use cases that include expected outcomes. Testers aren’t self-reliant when it comes to test design: they get pre-defined test cases and use cases and only execute them. Structured testing leaves no room for tester creativity or exploring the software on their own as these tests are made for finding bugs in core areas of your product like the checkout process or in the behavior of a contact form.
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