Reasons Why Software Testing Is Required

By Author: Ram Uppalapati
Total Articles: 1
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Software testing is a process done to evaluate the quality and performance of a software product or service, with the goal of identifying bugs, errors, and missing requirements within a software system before it is implemented. It is also an essential way to determine the software’s future risk of failure during its application. It can be frustrating for an end-user to use software with too many bugs. Such errors can negatively impact the user experience and ultimately ruin your reputation as a developer. This is why it’s important to have your software tested properly by a qualified team to make sure that it is ready for release. Proper testing ensures that end-users can confidently use it without having to deal with issues. Testing is certainly a critical aspect in the software development process and should never be omitted, even if you are in a rush to launch a product. It’s always cheaper and more prudent to find and fix bugs early in the software development life cycle (SDLC). The cost to fix a bug increases exponentially if found late in the development life cycle.

Reasons Why Software Testing is Necessary

The ...
... main purpose of software testing is to
• Determine software product satisfy requirements specified by customer.
• Demonstrate developed software product is fit for use.
• Gain confidence in and to provide information about the level of quality.
• Find/prevent defects.

Apart from gaining the customer’s confidence and saving money and time, there are other important reasons why software testing is necessary:

• Security - As hackers and attackers become bolder in stealing information and personal user data, it makes sense to ensure that your software is fool-proof and comes with robust and reliable security features. By testing the software thoroughly for security, you can be sure that it will not be vulnerable to attackers and that risks and problems can be minimized down the line.

• Product Quality - Human error is one of the reasons why software could fail and have bugs. Software testing helps identify those errors throughout the life cycle of the product, so that the end product can be made more efficient with no bugs or defects that could affect its quality.

• Performance - Performance testing is obviously paramount today for the success of any software application. To ensure flawless performance of your software, it is necessary to evaluate performance characteristics (speed, scalability and stability) of software under different workload conditions. Visitors spend less time when a site page takes too long to load. To keep visitors on your website, it is important to have quick page load times. A few minutes of downtime can be extremely costly, so organizations must ensure applications are available 24/7.

• Compliance - Non-conformance to standards could lead to rework. Compliance testing, also known as conformance testing, ensures that a computer program meets standards defined by organizations such as IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), etc. Software must be released only after confirming that it complies with all the applicable standards (contractual, governmental, legal, safety regulations or standards).

Conclusion: Software testing is crucial part of the software development life cycle. Implementing software testing early in the software development life cycle help to prevent defects from being introduced into the code, build the right software and reduce software maintenance costs. Software testingmust be done by professional and skilled testers with an eye for detail and experience in working with the type of software product that you have. For best results, be sure to hire the right people for the job.

About the Author: Ram Uppalapati is the person behind Qualitician.com, an exclusive job platform for companies and professionals in the software testing industry. Follow him on Twitter at @rkpchowdary