Modern large companies can spend up to 40% of the budget testing a new product. It allows them to prevent risks and release high-quality programs, websites, or applications to the market. But what about startups, where the budget is often minimal? Is it worth doing software testing for startups? It’s worth it because the quality of the new product depends on it. Not testing is a recipe for disaster. When developing a project, programmers may not pay attention to some aspects. They always need an outside perspective.
Why can’t startup testing be stopped?
When a team of programmers creates their product from scratch, they may not notice any problems, overlook or consider them insignificant. It leads to the fact that the user interface becomes inconvenient for a potential client. In addition, even experienced developers may not be aware of the tricks that hackers use to break into financial programs. Testing allows identifying the slightest vulnerability that will lead to problems in the future.
Refusal to test any software leads to a low-quality product entering the market. Of course, you will respond to user comments and correct them in the future, but the reputation will be ruined; you will scare away even those users who were interested in your product from the first day. Practice shows that restoring trust becomes critically tricky and sometimes impossible.
Types of testing
There are two main types of testing: automatic and manual. Under ideal conditions, you should use both types to achieve an excellent result. However, if you want to save money, you can use only one variety.
Automatic testing
Automated testing involves using generic tools that test code, application performance, or look for vulnerabilities. Simply put, they compare expectations and the accurate picture, and if there are discrepancies, they find them and report this to the tester.
The main advantages of this type of testing are:
- The program does the data processing itself, while the specialist can do other things;
- A deeper study of program code;
- It is possible to check the performance and find even the most non-obvious vulnerabilities;
- Lack of human factors.
However, automated testing has several drawbacks:
- Can’t test interface and user-friendliness;
- Presets take a long time;
- It costs expensive.
Automatic testing is ideal for large projects, labor-intensive tasks, and enterprises.
Manual testing
Manual testing is ideal for small startups as the cost is meager. Among the benefits of QA strategy are:
- An understandable and straightforward way to ensure the quality of the product;
- Helps to save well;
- It is possible to check the usability and interface of the product;
- It’s flexible and adapted to the vision of real users.
However, unlike automatic testing, manual testing cannot provide a deep analysis of software, reveal rare vulnerabilities, and take a very long time. In manual testing, a person proofreads the program code and performs some tests independently. It requires maximum concentration from the specialist for a long time, so errors are possible due to the human factor.
What is the advantage of manual testing for a startup?
The first and foremost argument favoring manual testing for startups is the low cost of services. Often, many projects are done by small new companies whose capital does not allow for expensive automated testing.
The second point is that manual testing can be performed at the project launch stage and the development stage. So, having written a program block, a specialist can immediately check it. Practice shows that identifying errors at the initial stage allows the developer to cost 30 times less than the launch stage. A mistake made at the beginning of the program code can cause more complex errors in the middle or even at the end of the code. It means that you have to fix it many times more, sometimes you have to postpone the release, which leads to a loss of confidence from the audience.
Some startups may refuse the services of experienced testers and conduct all the tests themselves. So, finance app testing can be carried out by all team members, communicating with each other exchanging ideas and possible problems. Once you’ve finished working on a small block, get your colleagues together and have everyone look at the interface and code. It will simultaneously ensure that the usability is helpful for the user and the software has no apparent problems. Sometimes it makes sense to ask for an outside perspective from people not involved in IT. It will allow you to understand how convenient, valuable and understandable your product is for the average user.
Conclusion
It doesn’t matter how much money you put into testing when planning a project, and experienced specialists will find a way to check your code and find apparent errors. Of course, the ideal solution would be to combine automatic and manual testing, but if there is no way to pay for such expensive services, this is not a reason to refuse to test. Try to organize the development team to be for each other’s testers. The main thing with this approach is to identify errors at their inception stage.
https://ventsmagazine.com/2022/03/04/does-your-startup-requires-software-testing/