As software testers, we are responsible for better coverage for our product’s towards quality. But still, we miss a lot of cases and are stuck to generate more test scenarios. So here I am helping you with some quick recipes to generate more test ideas for more test coverage.
Recipe 1: Check for already known common bugs and test ideas list
Every product has a lot of common functions (Eg: login screen, text fields and so on). So for these common functions we already have many lists of bugs that have been identified in the past which can be found in the form of documented test ideas , checklists and blogs. They give you a lot of ideas to test our products which eventually saves our time and also gives you better clarity of whether these are already in our environment or not.
Recipe 2: Test Heuristics/Mnemonics
Heuristics are simply experience-based techniques for problem-solving, learning, and discovery.
Heuristics/mnemonics are very useful when we are unsure how to test and when we run out of test ideas on what to do next to test. By using this approach we can generate test ideas and what to consider.
Here is a common heuristics for better understand:
Goldilocks (By Elisabeth Hendrickson) – “too big, too small and just right”.
Let’s take an example of testing a file upload function. We will try to use this above heuristic by trying to upload files with the larger size, with small size and correct allowed size. By doing this we can check how it behaves for each case in our product. And then also we can apply this same heuristic for a range of dates, a numerical value, the length of a string/text.
Recipe 3: Check your product’s support forum and community
It is another quick and effective thing we can get a lot more test ideas. Pay attention to what your users are facing troubles while using your products that can be discussed on the support forum and community. And also try to interact with your support team to know about these things. It is one of the best sources for generating test ideas because all users get different issues based on several factors. And also you can check other similar product’s support forums in the market. Hence you can refer here to get more ideas for your testing.
Recipe 4: Do pair testing with others
We can also generate a lot of test ideas if we pair with other testers, developers or business analysts. Everyone has a different perspective so that we can exchange ideas with each other. If you are testing a new feature you can collaborate with any one of them to generate more ideas which results in better coverage for the product. Also, in the end we can cover more scenarios in both positive and negative test cases.
Recipe 5: Put yourself in other’s shoes
Think about your user base and how they handle your products. Which can help you generate more use cases.
Let’s look at some of the examples to get a better idea.
- For the user in a remote place with less connectivity you need to check that your product’s functions are working fine in different network conditions
- For frequent keyboard shortcut users (Tab, enter, ctrl+c, ctrl+v) you need to verify if keyboard shortcuts are in fact working as expected in your product’s
- For people with less technology background(senior citizen, school goers and so on) you need to ensure if your product is user friendly or not by performing usability testing
Recipe 6: Domain knowledge
It is a very crucial thing for a tester to know about the domain knowledge of our product. It could be anything like finance, education, healthcare, insurance, e-commerce and so on. As testers, if we know about the business processes/rules about particular domains it will help you to generate more test ideas and also it would help to test our product better. Let’s consider you are testing a healthcare product. For this you need to be aware of HIPAA compliance. Once you get familiar with all regulations , business workflows/terms you can test your product in a better way.
Conclusion
Here you go! These are some quick and efficient recipes which come handy to get more test ideas when you are stuck during testing. So start using all of them in your testing and get benefited.
Happy Testing!
About the Author:
Lingesh Suresh
My name is Lingesh. I have around 2+ years of experience in software testing. Working as a Quality Assurance Engineer at ‘Prepaze’. Passionate software tester. Skilled in Functional testing, Manual/Automation testing using Appium, Selenium. Always try to learn and experiment with new things in software testing.
Nice explanation with scenarios. Your recipes are delicious for small companies like us for structuring the testing.
Very informative with simple words.
All the best Lingesh.