The Importance of Regression Testing in Providing Product Quality

The Importance of Regression Testing in Providing Product Quality

Regression testing as a part of big software testing stands as a stalwart guardian of software development, ensuring the quality of a product. It ensures that the changes made to product do not inadvertently introduce new defects or disrupt existing functionalities. Let's take a look into the depths of regression testing and understand its significance and strategies for effective implementation.

 

The focus of regression testing is to ensure that nothing that worked fine previously in the product has been broken due to:

a) new code changes;

b) changes to content files;

c) any deployment changes and upgrades.

Impact of Incorrect Regression Testing

When regression testing falls little effective or completely incorrectly carried out, the consequences may occur throughout the product development lifecycle. The experienced testing experts from testfort.com company describes the most basic of them as follow:

Diminished Product Quality: Flaws introduced through unchecked changes degrade the overall quality of the product, eroding user satisfaction.

Reduced Team Morale: Increased time and effort spent on debugging and troubleshooting dampen team spirits, impeding productivity.

Complex Debugging Process: Insufficient regression testing leads to intricate debugging processes, where identifying and resolving issues becomes a labyrinthine endeavor, breeding frustration.

To be safe, QA testing groups would often prefer to go with choosing a larger than required regression test suite. However, this is not a preferred route to take for several reasons such as:

 A. In the current day development world, all product teams operate within very tight timelines where one does not have the luxury of building an elaborate regression test suite.

 B. More importantly, a well chosen and optimized regression test suite, is what will give one the required coverage in ensuring product quality. A larger suite chosen purely by the number of test cases is not going to give any measurable results in enhancing the regression test coverage and product quality.

That said, choosing such an optimized regression test suite is easier said than done because of the complexity of product scenarios, geographically distributed teams, tests that are run in an exploratory manner, scenarios that are supported on multiple platforms (mobile and web, operating systems, browsers etc.). Once these challenges are mitigated and the right regression test strategy has been arrived at, it is a great win to the entire product team and more importantly the users in experiencing a product of great quality.

 

Implementing Regression Testing in Three Stages

It’s better to conduct regression testing in 3 stages, so the effort is spread throughout the testing cycle and regression issues are caught early on rather than waiting until the end of the test pass:

1. Informal Regression Testing with Every Release

An informal yet very valuable regression test phase with every feature release/new build deployment: Identify and include core workflow scenarios to include as part of your sanity testing every time a new build is deployed. These could be in the form of build verification tests, but will also touch upon regressions and any known areas which are especially unstable and prone to breaks/failures. Tests are largely automated here, but could also cover some manual scenarios.

2. Regression Testing with Every Defect Fix

Regression with every defect fix: Individual testers will be encouraged to carefully test not just for the defect fix but also holistically look at the defect and possible areas that might be impacted by this fix and test them from a regression angle. Tests are largely manual in nature here.

3. Formal Regression Testing Passes at Milestone Endings

A formal regression test passes at the end of every testing milestone. In this test pass, identify E2E scenarios and tests such that running them will give you maximum coverage with minimum number of tests and time to execute them. A best practice at this stage would be to use instrumented builds and enable code coverage such that you can measure the traceability of your tests to the code, both in your manual and automated test runs.

Maintaining an Effective Regression Testing Strategy

In addition to the staged approach outlined above, several key considerations contribute to the success of regression testing:

• Striking the right balance between manual and automated tests ensures efficient regression testing without compromising thoroughness.
• Continuously updating and refining the regression test suite ensures its relevance and effectiveness in detecting regressions.
• Encouraging the team to scrutinize exploratory tests for potential regression scenarios enhances test coverage.
• Foster collaboration across teams to identify pain points and refine regression testing strategies based on past experiences.
• While initial setup may require significant effort, the long-term benefits of a robust regression testing framework far outweigh the investment.

Conclusion

Regression testing serves as a basis in the quest for software quality, safeguarding against regression issues that threaten product integrity. By adopting a staged approach, embracing automation and fostering collaboration, testing teams can navigate the complexities of regression testing with confidence, delivering products of exceptional quality that delight users and stakeholders alike.