The More, The Merrier – Crowdsourced Testing

Software development has always offered a testing challenge because there are stages when it makes sense to have a small testing team and stages where you need to rise up noticeably. It’s hard to uphold a large QA department unless you have a wide range of coinciding projects at different stages. Crowdsourcing seems to be an ideal fit.

Why numbers matter in case of Crowdsourced testing?

Crowdsourced software testing allows developers to software get tested across hundreds of devices. A moderately recent innovation in how software testing is advanced, the Crowdsourcing model used by companies attracts thousands of professional testers from all over the world and set them up to test software on the browsers, operating systems and the systems they use every day. Therefore, Crowdsourced testing is directly proportional to the number of testers and devices included in the process. More the testers/devices, more better will be the quality of the product or Software.

Is Crowdsourced testing the right choice?

Over the last decade, the theory of Crowdsourcing has really lifted off. It lets companies to gain extensive input, contract directly with freelancers who are skilled and spark creativity without contracting new employees or including a third-party with a traditional inner staff model. It can be the interesting but right choice in a wide-ranging variety of different situations. Now we will discuss about some important points and the kinds of testing for which Crowdsourcing is best suited for:

a) Testing on multiple devices

Your testers will use their own devices and you can possibly cover a very large number of different hardware setups without adopting emulation. A real-world situation where testers are using their devices in their home offers better vision than testers using company devices in a lab. It would be ridiculously expensive and will be very difficult to manage to get this level of coverage. Crowdsourcing lets you to test your software on an extensive variety of tablets, computer systems, smartphones, other connected devices and wearables.

b) Software compatibility

Just as you can use more devices, you can also test more software versions to check the compatibility with software setups on your tester’s devices and different platforms. Crowdsourcing delivers greater analysis, so defects are more likely to be exposed.

c) Targeted feedback

You have the option of stipulating the demographic you are aiming for the finished software and getting feedback and test reports from specific geographical areas with Crowdsourced testing.

d) Finding people with right background

Get the people with domain knowledge without having to go through an expensive hiring process. You can often find the people with the right background and the skills you need with Crowdsourcing.

e) Load and network testing

You can scale up swiftly, define a small or large base, and potentially test under real network conditions. With Crowdsourced testing, you can test things that you would have to emulate in-house.

f) Usability testing

Some of the reasons why Crowdsourced testing is ideal for usability testing are: it’s less expensive than focus testing, it gives you a picture with actionable feedback, testers are in their portion more like end users, you can pick the demographic and you can test in small additions before tuning your approach. This kind of wide-ranging insight from testers who are close to your end user target base was expensive and difficult to bring together before Crowdsourcing became popular and is hugely valuable.

g) Localization testing

A good localization is about much more than direct translation. Find cultural differences, test expectations and match your target audience. With crowdsourcing you can get direct entree to testers signifying the customers you want in all the countries that you’re targeting.

There are so many promises with Crowdsourced testing that makes it the right solution for software developers but scalability and reduced costs at high level remain the most convincing reasons to adopt it.

Also Read: Case Study on Yielding Test Architecture Quality for a US based Technology Firm