Software testing is a process in any software developing company where a tester performs various tasks to evaluate the software and make it free of bugs or errors. Despite all the evolution and development in the testing field, not every company that works on computer software practices testing professionally. Even in this age, many companies do not think testing is an essential asset for their company. This may lead them to a serious failure at some point and rethink software testing.
What Happens Without Software Testing?
Let's look at some data on fatal accidents that have happened over time due to software failure.
- In 1985, a radiation therapy machine in Canada malfunctioned due to a software bug and delivered lethal radiation doses to patients, leaving three people dead and three others critically injured. (source)
- Approximately 1 million Nissan vehicles were subject to a recall due to a software fault with the airbag sensory detectors after two incidents were reported involving the problem. (source)
- Most of the Starbucks stores in the USA and Canada were closed, giving away free drinks or only accepting cash due to a software failure in its POS system, which couldn't perform any transaction. (source)
Why Is Software Testing Important?
Investing in software testing for the overall quality of any developing software is a great way to prevent any malfunction. To simplify, I will summarize the main points on the importance of software testing.
Cost
No one wants a project to overflow, but often there is a feeling that the budget might run out sooner than expected or the spending might be higher towards the end of the project. We do not want the last huge amount of money to be spent on fixing issues.
Many of you might be wondering how an added human resource in the team saves money. However, there is enough evidence to support the fact that quality testing reduces the overall cost for the company.
The software development life cycle consists of several steps. So, the earlier a bug is found, the lesser the cost to fix it. The testers involved since the beginning of the project can point out bugs early.
There is a concept of Boehm's cost of change curve described back in 1976, which is true for the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) even today. This curve shows that the cost to fix a bug is exponentially high in the later stages of software development.
Security
The most sensitive and vulnerable part of any company or software is security.
We are familiar with the Twitter handles that can hack into user information from even reputed companies. These bots steal or sell this data and might threaten the users based on the stolen data too. This could have been avoided if testers had found such security loopholes beforehand.
As users, we want the service or the product provider to keep our data safe with utmost confidence. Think what would happen if your bank account's information is leaked through your mobile banking application. This is one of the reasons why software testing is important.
Product Quality
Any product that is being prepared always has a set of requirements under which they are being developed. Software testing makes sure that the product meets the set criteria. Your product should help the user in some way. Delivering promised value is a must.
The quality of an application does not simply mean that it can run on a single device; it should be compatible with multiple devices and OS. Device and OS fragmentation is one of the major challenges today in the software field to ensure overall product quality. Software testing helps mitigate this issue through testing on different devices and OS.
Customer Satisfaction
The ultimate goal of every product is customer satisfaction. A company has to ensure its product can run efficiently with the required load and in stressful conditions. Selecting and making the best projects out of a flood of projects will set a reputation for the newer and older customers. However, earning customers' trust is certainly not easy, especially when the product works and fails every now and then. Thus, starting software testing is going to reap long-term benefits.
Also, a software tester tests the product from an end user's perspective. A bunch of testing methodologies (e.g. UI/UX testing, user acceptance, compatibility and more) ensure overall customer satisfaction once it's released to the targeted group of customers.
The software market today is really saturated. So, first impressions are very important, and if you do not give one, users will find another product that ticks all the boxes.
In the end, I can only say that do not save money on testing; otherwise, you will obviously have to pay more for everything in the future.
I hope you consider the things mentioned in this article. Don't forget to subscribe using the buttons below to not miss our latest blogs.