Software Testing

What is software testing?

Put simply, software testing is the activity of making sure software does what it’s supposed to do. (And also that it definitely doesn’t do what it’s not supposed to do!)

Testing is a part of a wider Quality Assurance (QA) process. The goal is to reduce the number and severity of defects/bugs in your software before it goes live. Ultimately, testing is about reducing risk.

At Helastel, we test using both manual and automated testing methods so that we only deliver software of the highest quality.

Why is software testing necessary?

It’s impossible to create perfect complex software. At some stage, almost all software will have faults, bugs or defects. It’s built by humans after all. Comprehensive software testing will reduce the likelihood of issues arising, such as:

• A failed payment system preventing customers from buying online, resulting in poor customer experience
• A CRM system that keeps on crashing, resulting in lost data
• Errors in data leading to customers receiving incorrect deliveries

Without proper testing in place, these issues can have much more significant consequences:

• A defect in Boeing’s automated flight-control system caused two planes to crash in 2017 and 2018, killing a total of 346 people.
• In 2016, Nissan was forced to recall over 3.5 million vehicles, after a software bug caused sensors in their airbags to fail. The fault caused several accidents, and cost Nissan millions; let alone damage to their reputation.
• The Child Support Agency (CSA) overpaid 1.9 million people and underpaid 700,000 in 2004 after their new payments system was found to be incompatible with other government systems. The defect cost taxpayers over £638 million, and caused chaos for families all over the UK.

The moral of the story? Rigorous software testing can save huge financial losses, prevent damage to your reputation, and even save lives. It’s a vital element of any complex software deployment.

Software testing with Helastel

At Helastel, our software development packages come with rigorous software testing comes as standard. Our testing capabilities include:

1. Functional Testing: Unit testing, integration testing, smoke testing, UAT (User Acceptance Testing), localisation, globalisation, interoperability, ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) / BI testing, regression testing, baseline benchmarking.
2. Non-Functional Testing: Performance, endurance, load, volume, scalability, usability / UX, accessibility to WCAG standard (A, AA, AAA), system testing, security and penetration testing, data governance testing (e.g. GDPR), static analysis of requirements, ISO compliance testing.
3. Automated testing: Automated UI testing, API testing, automated database testing, automated unit testing.
4. Maintenance: Regression testing, and regular testing against a set baseline.

To find out more on how we test software, or our broader software development services, please get in touch using the form below, or call us on 0117 3830 380.