In today’s article, we are going to learn more about Crowdsourced Testing. Software testing had to overcome plenty of hurdles and as a result of this, scale, scope and tool set of the testing process has ramped up in the recent days. QA team needs to apprehend the novice technologies of the development team and analyze how they affect the testing process. Testers also need to implement a holistic testing methodology both in manual and automatic testing.

What is a Crowd?

The crowd can be considered as a group of people who perform in an independent manner. They are not associated with any organization. However, these group of people may have some common traits or characteristics.

What is Crowdsourced testing?

Crowdsourced testing has emerged as the buzzword in software testing, which is potential enough to gain the advantages, effectiveness, and value of Crowdsourcing in the cloud platform. Traditional testing practice is that testers would be linked to one particular organization and work together in a particular organization to achieve the common goal. However in Crowdsourced testing testers can be from any part of the world working in different locations. It helps to test the software under real-world scenario – helps to identify defects swiftly and in an economical manner. It also guarantees quality and flexibility of operation at improved speed and reduced cost.

History of Crowdsourced testing:

Beta testing is considered as a popular example of Crowdsourced testing. IBM, tech giant has coined the term beta testing in order to perform hardware testing. Later more and more organizations joined the suite. Beta testing started with hardware testing and now is extended to software testing also. Open source software can also be considered as another example of Crowdsourced testing, where the source code was also distributed together with the software in order to make code changes. Hence the user can make software that is compatible with the hardware and OS requirements.

Features of Crowdsourced testing:

Helps to bring in end-user mindset – Since the input is taken directly from a sample of end-users, it helps to analyze the mindset of end users. This input can be later given to planning and design phases also.

Subject matter expertise: At times, there may be situations like lack of experts in a particular field, or lack of time and money to hire a full-time employee with the required level of subject matter expertise. At such conditions arise the relevance of Crowd who have good subject matter expertise. Since they are not directly related to the organization, a firm does not have any additional liability. An organization can pay them for the duration for which they have worked.

An organization can make use of Crowd in order to address organization’s domain expertise requirements. For example, take a situation in which an application is developed in the UK and they have created a localized version for the users in India who speak Hindi. An organization can hire a person who is fluent in Hindi and possess good testing skills to check through the entire application. Though this is a short-term process, it is crucial to be performed to note that end user requirements are met.

Crowdsourced testing phases:

Preparation phase:

1. The testing team needs to assess client’s business requirements and objectives.
2. Design the test plan which comprises of required skills and capacities.
3. Fix price and deliverables

Initiation phase:

1. Define test case and configurations.
2. Hire Crowd testers from a pool of professionals.
3. Secure test environment needs to be established

Execution phase:

1. Testing process needs to be initiated across multiple devices and software
2. Test team needs to be managed and supervised.
3. Performance needs to be monitored and ensured.

Evaluation phase

1. Results need to be validated and Quality assurance needs to be performed
2. Client deliverables need to be prepared
3. Compensation of testing team needs to be prepared.

Completion phase

1. Results have to be presented to client
2. Test cycle has to be closed.

A skilled project manager will take care of the entire project management process

In which all forms of a testing user can apply the fundamentals of Crowdsourced testing?

Crowdsourced testing can be applied in the number of different applications like functional testing, UI testing, usability testing, accessibility testing, performance testing, security testing, globalization testing, compatibility testing and the like.

Which applications are the right fit for Crowdsourced testing?

The crowdsourced testing approach is the right fit for applications that are user-centric. It is commonly used in video game dev projects and mobile applications also. The Strong user base will help the organization to apprehend patterns of usage and boost the feedback which helps to reduce customer complaints after the final product release. An application can be run on a variety of gadgets, OS, browsers, and languages.  Applications that have the parameter defect exposure factor as a high value are the best option for Crowdsourced testing.

Functional testing-  Crowdsourced testing helps to identify if functional requirements are met. It also helps to verify if there are any defects, broken links, spelling or grammar mistakes that may hamper the end-user experience.

Localization testing- It also helps to perform localization testing which helps to check if there is any grammatical issues or spelling mistakes in different languages. It needs to be technically suited to the target market where it can be further used.

Usability testing- Test request can be personalized to gain the response from ardent early adopters.

Websites, Ios and Android apps, video games, software and anything else can be tested using Crowdsourced testing.

Merits of Crowdsourced testing:

1. Testing can be performed in multiple environments and in different gadgets, bandwidths.
2. Crowdsourced testing is an economic method of testing as the firm need to pay only for the valid defects identified.
3. QA testers who perform Crowdsourced testing are impartial in giving reviews.
4. Can get testers from many languages and is particularly useful in testing software grounded on localization.
5. Testers performing this form of testing are unbiased towards the internal concerns of the company.
6. The pool of testers is diverse with variations in languages as well as locales. This helps in testing applications which are based on localization.
7. Testing can be performed quickly.

Demerits of Crowdsourced Testing:

1. It is difficult to take care of confidentiality issues.
2. Communication problems can also occur. Since they are paid based on count of defects, testers may concentrate more on defects which have low severity
3. Testing management and planning is a difficult process.

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