6 Ways To Find The Best Software Testing Tool For Your Next Project

A software product is refined via a process of testing. It is one of the most important phases of the development life cycle. If your software product is not working properly, users obviously won’t like it. They won’t even recommend it to other users and will abandon it immediately. Application testing’s wide variety of technologies and styles make creating a single, universal test tool impossible companies need a toolbox. Most experienced developers and engineers know that this is not a single phase but a complete lifecycle aligned with the life of software.

Here are some tips to consider when choosing a testing tool for your next development project. Follow these guidelines to select a tool that ensures your current and future software testing requirements:

Decide What To Test

It is impossible to test each and everything. Determine the testing requirements you have and share them with your security experts and testing engineers. You must also keep in mind whether a test must be repeated or not, and lock down the requirements of data to perform these actions.

Decide If You Need To Test At All

Do you need to test? You need to clearly understand your software testing projects and decide on the strategy. When choosing a tool, future testing requirements should also be on your mind. Here are some questions to ask:

• Do you even need to test?
• Are there many cases in the organization to test?
• Is there an order in which you plan to launch the tests?
• Is it limited to one machine or separate environments?
• Do you require documentation regularly?

Check The Complexity Of Your Environment

You need to understand the complexity of your testing environment before you go out to make a deal. In some projects, you only need to perform load testing or just web testing or mobile testing to the max. You need to be very clear about what you need and what your testing environment requires from a tool.

There are tools specific to the nature of the business and then there are all-in-one tools. Decide which one your business requires. Do you have all the requirements of the application testing with you? Sometimes you need to prepare the documents for your testing requirements and set your case forward.

Lastly, decide how much you are willing to invest in a tool. It is something that will help shape your search in the best way. You can even categorize tools based on budget and other requirements.

Experiment With Various Tools

The best way to choose a tool is to have some test runs with the best tools in the market. Also, the tool-providing company must allow a test run to make you understand the nature of the tool in a better way. You can also download the trial versions of various tools which are available on their websites. Get sample test cases made by these trial runs and understand how each tool deals with your cases.

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Also, if the tool isn’t meeting your requirements, you can reach out to the tool-providing company and ask for a demo to make sure you are doing everything right. Currently, all companies offer free trials and demos to their customers and leads.

Here are some things you can check when trying the tools:

• Integration of the tool with other apps in your system
• Smooth working of the tool on your choice of browsers and operating systems
• Record and playback feature for compiling a list of test cases to refer to later
• Synchronization with your system and distributed functionality
• A programming language that your system engineers can understand and use
• Testing solutions needed by your system and whether the tool covers them or not
• Customer service interaction and portfolio of the tool provider

Choose From Open Sourced or Licensed Tools

Now that your test runs are complete, you need to compare each tool and start making notes. You should compare the open-source tools with the commercial tools to focus on the one which has it all. It is apparent that cost is a major difference between a commercial tool and an open-source tool, but your focus should be on the quality, rather than the price of the tool.

Let’s look at some features that define the best testing tool for your company:

• An easy to learn tool which can be adopted by the company without any extra effort and has many options to integrate with the apps of your choice

• How much support does the tool provide for test management, the OS of your choice, and the platform

• What do other users in the industry say about this tool? Research this element strongly before you make a decision

• Lastly, open-sourced tools do not provide support the way a commercial tool does, but if the tool is better at providing what your company needs, you may go ahead with it

Don’t Use Manual Test Cases

Don’t let any security or testing expert tell you that your testing cycle should begin from manual test cases. If you begin that cycle from manual testing, the whole model may face the risk of presenting poor outcomes. Automation is the best way to go about it because of its fool-proof nature and solid results.

Automation should be integrated into the overall lifecycle, and not a “test automation” silo. Test planning, design, scenario creation, and test data planning are all part of the basic steps of the quality lifecycle. If each one is handled in silo the result is automation becoming an overhead that drags us instead of giving us speed.

It is easier said than done when you are in the process of choosing a tool, but this is the time where the importance of automation must be rooted in your mind so that you can make an educated decision.

Manual testing poses many errors, most of them being human errors. Automation testing, on the other hand, gives you the freedom to launch expert tests and put the system on autopilot.

Last word

By now, you must have realized that you need testing automation in one way or the other. Sit down with your team and explore all the options for choosing test tools that fit your testing environment. Consider the points mentioned here to choose the right tool and never forget to go for a trial run.