Why Dedicated Testing Makes All the Difference
Scott MorrisSolutions Engineer
Having been with 4mation since inception in 2001 while completing a Computer Science degree at UTS, Scott has played a variety of roles within the business through its almost 20 years of growth.
As a Certified AWS Solutions Architect, Scott has a strong ability to bridge the gap between the technical and business/user world. Scott has a deep understanding of the service we provide our clients having spent years as a Developer, Business Analyst, Team Lead, and Head of Delivery.
His focus now is heading up 4mation’s Internal Operations to make our work and suite of digital tools as efficient and effective as possible.
A recent article published by MaltBlue has stated that over 50% of a developer’s time is spent on finding and fixing bugs, at a worldwide cost of over $312 billion.
Much like the author of the article, Matthew Setter, many developers only consider testing as an afterthought. Perhaps they are overconfident and think their code is already perfect, or they see it as a waste of time and resources.
The truth is that bugs are a fact of life. They can and will occur, and we all know the time they can waste and the problems they can cause in corrupt data. That’s why at 4mation Technologies we have formalised testing procedures, where test cases are generated and carried out by our independent testing team to ensure that all bugs are located and fixed before project completion.
How does testing work?
There can be up to eight distinct tests conducted on a project during development. Some of the test we regularly perform are:
- Functional testing – this is the first round of testing that occurs on any project, and ensures that all features included in the proposal document are working as intended.
- Back-end testing – this is generally the most important testing phase. Back-end testing confirms that data entered in the front end e.g placement of a new order, is stored in the backend database correctly
- Negative testing – ensures that the website behaves correctly when invalid data is entered e.g. an error message appears when letter characters are used in a numeric form field
- Exploratory testing – overall testing of the website as a new user without following the proposal document
- Cross browser testing – ensures that the website works correctly on the specified platforms and browsers e.g. Windows XP with Firefox 3.6
- Regression testing – performed after go-live or significant new changes. Regression testing ensures that the site still performs as expected in the new environment (i.e. it hasn’t “regressed”), and to confirm that there are no unexpected bugs.
Do you hate bugs too? Give us a call on (02) 9213 1300 to discuss how our testing procedures will help ensure the success of your online project.
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