Crowdsourced Testing In A Remote World

By Author: James Danel
Total Articles: 7
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In the wake of the Agile-DevOps model of software development, enterprises are looking at accelerating their delivery of software products, minimizing or altogether eliminating any quality issues, scaling testing requirements whenever needed, and be flexible. The above outcomes may not always be attainable by leveraging the in-house resources given their limited numbers and growing workload. Also, the pandemic has created a situation where enterprises are forced to work remotely, including conducting the critical activity of testing. This is where crowdsourced testing can help matters with enterprises dipping into a large reservoir of QA specialists located globally. The earlier requisites of working with a collocated team a la Agile have been challenged in favor of crowdsourced QA testing. If you take the examples of Microsoft, Facebook, Spotify, or Dropbox, which keep on updating their features and functionalities almost on a daily basis to give their customers the best experience, it should not come as a surprise that these companies leverage crowdsourced testing, that is, in addition to having their own QA teams.

What ...
... is crowdsourced or crowd testing?

It is possible that the in-house testers do not necessarily look at the software product critically from an end-user perspective. Instead, it may be bound by the sinews of an enterprise in terms of cost constraints, timelines, and the management’s vision, among others. And when such software products go out to the end-users certain issues hitherto ignored or not countenanced, may come to the fore and affect the customer experience negatively. This is why enterprises are increasingly leaning on the services of a ‘crowd’ of testers spread worldwide. These remotely located distributed testers may be given the task of conducting testing activities such as exploratory testing, functional testing, regression testing, and localization, among others. This way the in-house QA teams can get access to scores of professional testers spread across the world and gain valuable device coverage and local insights.

What are the benefits of crowdsourced software quality assurance?

The fast-growing practice of utilizing crowdsourced testers working remotely across various locations globally is going to be the new normal for its slew of benefits.

# Right pool of resources: Software applications are becoming more complex given the usage of new technologies, a plethora of device and operating platforms, changing market dynamics, and shifting customer preferences. In most cases, enterprises do not possess the right pool of resources to conduct every kind of testing the software under development requires. This is where properly vetted crowdsourced testing services can be utilized. Moreover, since crowdsourced testers come from different geographical locations, backgrounds, and have different skill sets, they are better placed to evaluate a software application. The outcome of leveraging such a distributed pool of global resources is higher accuracy, stability, and security of the application.

# Speed: To remain competitive in today’s market and build brand awareness among the target customers, the delivery of software application should be quick. Besides, enterprises should upgrade the software applications already in use at a quickening pace. To achieve such continuous integration and continuous delivery outcomes a la DevOps, there should be a mix of in-house and crowdsourced testers. The latter can give enterprises the flexibility and cost-effectiveness to scale up testing when required without adding to their pool of in-house resources.

# Localization: When a software application is released in different geographical locations, the instructions are translated into the local languages by using various translation service providers. However, such translations may not yield the desired results the enterprises are aiming at. For example, the release of a software application in another country or location may lead to the following:

• The end-users in that country or location may not download or use the application

• Certain features or functions of the software application might influence the local users of the brand’s cultural aspects

To address the challenges born out of the above-mentioned factors, the need to obtain localized inputs or insights becomes important. These inputs obtained from crowdsourced software quality assurance can help enterprises to release and expand the product in the local markets without getting involved on the ground. The inputs allow enterprises to deliver software testing methodologies to real users on real devices in the countries of their choice.

Conclusion

Enterprises, by utilizing a mix of in-house and QA crowdsourced testing, can obtain benefits such as global reach, top-notch quality, accelerated speed to market, cost-effectiveness, and localized insights to remain competitive. They can deliver an impeccable user experience to their customers and enhance brand equity on a global scale.

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James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies. I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality that yields strong results and always happy to create valuable content & share thoughts.