Debunking the Common Regression Testing Myths

With customer experience driving enterprises towards delivering better quality products, they are going the Agile-DevOps way. In this, any product or service needs to be continuously upgraded to meet the changing realities of the day. The realities may include the following:

·       Advent of new technologies that have the potential to increase efficiency, quality, and productivity

·       Changing customer preferences about products or specific features of any product

·       New and better quality products being brought to the table by the competitors

·       The products need to comply with the new security or industry guidelines

·       The products should be workable across devices, browsers, or operating systems, and their updates

Therefore, while in pursuit of Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI and CD) goals as required by Agile and DevOps, the product needs to be updated periodically. While this is a good practice, for it ensures the product remains trendy and technically superior, it can be challenging as well. The updates to one part of the software or the whole software can trigger unlikely changes. These changes can affect the smooth functioning of the software or introduce glitches. So, on one side, the software is updated in consonance with the market or customer demand, on the other, it fails to deliver the best customer experience. To pre-empt such a situation from developing, the QA team performs software regression testing.

What is regression testing?

It is a type of testing that ensures the functionality of an application is not affected by a fix or change made in that application. When a tested software undergoes a fix or update, which does not necessarily affect the whole software, the QA team does not test all the modules. Instead, only a few test cases are executed ensuring adequate test coverage. Any regression testing in software testing can be a fit for test automation due to the overwhelming number of repetitive tests to be conducted.

Benefits of regression testing

QA regression testing accrues a number of benefits for the QA team. These include

·       Ensuring any changes (enhancements or bug fixes) made to the application or a specific module of the application do not affect the tested code

·       Improving the overall quality of the product and making it trendy and customer friendly

·       Reducing the testing time as only a limited area of the software is tested

·       Identifying the bugs or glitches causing the issue and fixing them

·       Helping to implement a Continuous Integration (CI) setup. Here a build triggered by a code is tested automatically in the form of an automated regression testing

Debunking the common myths about regression testing

With time, some myths have gained credence in the minds of QA testers related to regression testing.

Limited testing of functionalities may not be a good idea: Here, instead of testing the already tested codes, only a specific area/feature/functionality of the software is tested. And since the entire software is not tested, the glitches triggered by the fixes or updates in one part of the application may not be identified. This is where the QA specialists need to be meticulous with their planning.

Automation is mandatory to plan any regression testing strategy: Since repeated testing of the already tested code (not the whole application) is done in such type of testing, automation is preferred to save time. However, this does not mean that manual testing can be completely replaced. It is helpful to get a human insight into testing, which automated testing may not always offer. Also, test automation requires proper maintenance of test scripts and test cases lest they deliver the wrong outcome. Further, in cases where quick fixes are needed, manual testing can do the necessary QA regression testing since test automation may take time to setup.

Regression testing lasts long: Any automated regression testing can check and recheck the codes, which no manual checking can accomplish in a reasonable period. Since the scope of testing is small, the testing need not take ages to complete.

Regression testing is not obligatory: This is often put forth by enterprises that give precedence to ‘faster time to market’. However, doing away with regression testing services can backfire as any quick fix to an already tested product can trigger changes elsewhere. And without identifying and fixing those changes (read inclusion of glitches or bugs,) the final product will not be of superior quality.

Conclusion

Notwithstanding the above-mentioned myths, the need for regression testing has become mandatory given the frequent updates received by software applications. It helps QA specialists to do away with any unfavourable changes to the application and delivers the best possible user experience.

The Inevitability of Regression Testing

When it is all about staying competitive and earning revenues, enterprises are going all out to develop new applications with better user experiences. With users becoming choosy, enterprises are constrained to offer features and functionalities that are different from their competitors. However, there is a catch when it comes to adding new features in an application - regression! Yes, the unintended consequence of any code change, which instead of enhancing the user experience can, at times, act as a bummer.

Let us understand the same with an example. You take your car to the mechanic to fix an issue with its heating function. But after receiving the car with its heating function fixed, you find another function, say its fog lights not working. This turns out to be an unintended consequence, which you never imagined would hit you from nowhere.

To make it further easier to understand, let us relate it to software. For example, an application adding a photo-sharing service ends up nixing its loading speed upon delivery. So, to ensure such unintended changes do not hamper the user experience, testers need to implement a robust regression testing strategy.

So, what is regression testing and why is it needed?

It is aimed at ensuring the seamless functioning of an application in-spite of any addition/modification to its feature(s). This is important as regression testing can identify issues and fix them arising out of any code change. It is different from retesting and ensures the entire application to work in accordance with the expectations post changes. In retesting, on the other hand, only the specific code change is tested for its expected outcome. Hence, any comprehensive software regression testing can be quite complex and time-consuming.

Checklist for regression testing in software testing

A change in one part can create an unintended change in another part of the software. And unless the entire software is monitored post introducing the change, the consequences can impact the software’s functionality and user experience. The below-mentioned scenarios or test cases can be fit cases for conducting software regression testing.

·         Functionalities to have undergone changes

·         Cases related to integration

·         Cases with boundary values

·         Functionalities most visible to the users

·         All core features

·         Scenarios facing frequent defects

Should regression testing be automated?

Since regression testing services are often iterative, they are good candidates for automation. The test cases for automated regression testing should be easy-to-maintain, stable, and frequently repeated. As this type of testing checks the quality of an existing functionality, it needs to be repeated for various parameters. Automated regression testing frees up testers and allows them to further explore the production environment for any unusual responses. Further, not all software regressions are a result of code change. For example, some may be the result of updates to databases or browser versions.

Challenges to regression testing

The quality of an existing functionality can be ensured with more automation. However, it also requires testers to maintain such test suites for their prolonged usage. So, the test suites need to be flexible to incorporate any future changes. Let us discuss some challenges associated with regression testing services.

·         Expensive: As the same function is tested repeatedly, there is no immediate ROI to speak of but mainly expenses.

·         Not adequate time for testing: Since a project needs to be completed in a timebound manner, it is not possible to let the iterative regression testing to continue for a longer duration. So, testers often execute critical regression tests only and skip others. This can leave a few quality issues to remain unchecked.

·         Maintenance and optimization: The automated test suites should be optimized and maintained to meet the rigors of any new testing requirement.

How to manage regression testing

Given the inevitability of such testing in preempting the ingress of any unintentional quality issues during a code change, the tests should be managed well. The steps to ensure the same are:

·         Executing smoke test and automation

·         Analyzing the test requirements

·         Preparing to deal with the impact of changes

·         Prioritizing tests

·         Choosing the right automation tools

·         Analyzing the final glitch report in detail

·         Optimizing and maintaining the test suites

·         Creating criteria for entry or exit of regression testing

·         Executing testing randomly

·         Keeping the testers motivated

Conclusion

The rapidly changing digital landscape owing to the addition of new features and versions of software applications, browsers, and operating systems requires businesses to set up a robust regression testing strategy. So, even though the testing per se is expensive and time-consuming, it should be taken to its logical conclusion.

This article is originally published on dev.to.