A Case for Crowd-sourced Testing

The importance of QA and testing isn’t to be downplayed, especially in competitive times like these. It is often said that your apps and software need to function seamlessly if you want to meet the expectations of your users. For this very reason, a solid testing process must be set in place in every security testing company to validate software at each and every stage of its development lifecycle. But the problem with performing comprehensive testing in a single instance is that it brings more chaos in the process and allows more bugs to move along with the apps. To put it simply, because of a lack of time or availability of resources, businesses often face challenges in completing the testing cycle.

In order to beat the lengthy testing and release cycle, development costs and buggy code, Crowdsourced Testing is an efficient alternative for enterprises to check their apps by distributing tests to real users/testers at different places. Because the name ‘crowd’ suggests, the testing process involves different individuals and groups of people which are selected to support their professional background, environment, profile, devices, etc. to imitate real-world conditions for testing.

The crowd-sourced testing process is more user-centric due to the fact that apps are collectively tested by a large number of people with a more realistic condition and nothing like conventional testing where the apps are tested by one tester or group during a limited environment. The whole process imparts more diversity, flexibility, speed and cost-effectiveness which is why it’s ideal for enterprises that lack resources or time to hold out the testing process.

With that being said, let’s look at a few benefits of crowd-sourced testing below:

Advantages of Crowdsourced Testing

1. Cost-Effective
   Since Crowdsourced testing only requires paying testers to support the valid bugs, it becomes cheaper for the enterprises compared to outsourcing testing services. In Crowdsourced testing, the payment is formed just for the output generated then, enterprises don’t get to distribute the money as per fixed billing. Also, since testers test the apps in their own environment set-up, it doesn’t require the extra expenses of acquiring infrastructure which ends up in reduced costs.
   
2. Better Results
   It is said that ‘more heads are better than one which is that the reason, Crowdsourced testing yields better results than conventional testing. There are more ideas and feedback from a good range of individuals with different skills and background. Thus, the collective output is best in a way that there are more viewpoints and factors supported which the software is tested and this makes the software more robust.
   
3. Realistic Outcome
   Unlike the normal testing process, Crowd-sourced testing involves testers who are exposed to real scenarios, which is why the results obtained are more realistic. rather than using hypothetical test cases, the testers use actual data, environment, and programs that give accurate and reliable results.
   
4. Flexibility
   Crowdsourced testing also imparts tons of flexibility to check projects by enabling enterprises to vary resources, location, time of testing and make payments accordingly. aside from this, it provides more choice to leverage different environment setup and infrastructure from different testers as and when required which adds more flexibility to the test projects.
   
5. Quicker Results & Feedback
   Test results with Crowdsourced testing are much quicker since there are different testers to perform different testing at an equivalent time, which results in faster completion of the testing cycle. It also brings in additional agility because the whole testing cycle is attached to an endless feedback circuit from designated testers resulting in faster feedback.
   
6. Diverse Resources
   In Crowd-sourced testing, tests are allocated to different testers having different skills, devices, and environments to check different scenario. This helps avail diverse resources and skillsets. Also, when a security testing company doesn’t own required resources and infrastructure, Crowd-sourced testing helps in leveraging the advantages of a good range of test resources and environments.
   
7. Unbiased Opinion
   It also helps in getting unbiased opinions and feedback because the testers employed work separately during a realistic environment with a neutral outlook. They’re also not related to other teams so chances of influencing the output or feedback are lesser which helps in giving unbiased results and opinions.
   
8. Broader Coverage
   Crowdsourced testing also helps increase test coverage. Since the software is exposed to different test conditions, scenarios and environment which collectively expands the scope of testing, it enables enterprises to realize better test coverage.