10 Unique Ways to Perform Exploratory Software Testing

Exploratory testing is not about following set scripts or test cases. It is a fascinating adventure where we explore how software works from a user’s point of view. This method helps us find problems that scripted tests can miss. It helps us understand the possibilities and limitations of the application. It also improves our logical, critical, and analytical thinking, which is important for software testers.

This blog post covers 10 unique and amazing ways to perform exploratory testing from a functional/functionality perspective.

1. Perform E2E testing from the User Perspective

While testing any unfamiliar application, the goal is to know as much as possible about the flow. When you get the software application to test, your first motivation is to analyze how a user would use this application. You need to know what tabs and links they would navigate to. Understand that the first step of exploratory testing is not to test the application from the “tester” perspective but from the “user” perspective. This will allow you to understand the key requirements of the web application.

2. Get some Domain Knowledge before you start

When tasked with performing exploratory testing on an e-commerce web application, it’s essential to have a solid understanding of how e-commerce applications function, the available user features, and the different user personas. Similarly, for a banking application, it’s important to be familiar with banking and finance terms such as NEFT, Savings Account, Loans, and Credit Score. One effective way to achieve this is by regularly using a real-life application and exploring its various sections and tabs to grasp the workflow.

3. Compare with Production Behavior

During test execution on lower environments, if you feel uncertain about the proper functioning of a feature, you can compare its behavior by accessing the production website of the same application. If the behavior matches in the production environment as well, you can conclude that the feature is working fine in the lower environment. I have done this countless times when I didn’t have other testers or developers available to resolve such queries.

4. Study the Existing Open and Closed Defects

Identified defects offer valuable and detailed information about the issues and challenges with the application. They also provide insight into the functionality of the application. However, we must be careful to avoid repeating the same tests as those outlined in the test case document. Existing tickets help us understand the about the weaker areas of the system.

5. Connect with the Developers

Before you start exploring the system, it is essential to get background information about the functionalities and the scope of testing. As a QA, you need to reach out to developers (or even the business analysts if possible) and ask them about the high-priority areas that we need to test. This will save you a lot of time during exploratory testing. You will be able to raise better defects as you are more clear about the scope of testing.

6. Prepare a detailed Exploratory Testing Execution Report

In the agile world, documentation is something that is not taken seriously. But in terms of exploratory testing, testers need to make a detailed report about the tests that they have performed, the modules or the flows they tested, the defects that they read for reference, the functionalities, their understanding of the system (it may be not 100% accurate but that is fine). They should also note down the test data used to test the software.

7. Get Creative while Testing

Explore the application by navigating through the browser, using incognito mode, testing the mobile view with developer tools, trying different browsers and devices, and utilizing keyboard shortcuts like TAB and ENTER. By exploring the application this way, you increase the likelihood of discovering new defects.

8. Play around with User Inputs

Apart from testing the flows using the test data provided by the data team or testers, you can try to use random inputs, negative values, blank inputs, numbers instead of characters, characters instead of numbers and many different ways to invoke errors for the fields. This allows us to find potential bugs.

9. Exploring Data Variations

Software can behave differently based on the length of the input provided. As a tester, you can test with long and short usernames or using concise or more verbose addresses. By systematically varying the data lengths, we can catch those bugs early and ensure a smoother user experience. Similarly, it is important to consider different types & formats of data. For example, we can test birthday inputs using MM/DD/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY to check how the system behaves when this format variation is used. These little inconsistencies matter and exploring them helps improve the reliability of the software.

10. Risk-based Probing

Risk assessment of the functionalities of a software is very important to formulate test strategies. It involves analyzing the impact, likelihood and detectability of the risk. By using a risk-based approach, testers can ensure thorough testing of critical areas using different test scenarios, outputs, and conditions to identify vulnerabilities, unexpected behavior, and usability glitches. For instance, in e-commerce applications, payment processing is a critical functionality. As a result, QA teams will make sure to execute test cases associated with payment processing before a release.

So these were some unique ways to perform exploratory testing and show your excellent skills as a software tester. Exploratory testing is one of the most important part of any software tester’s career. If you are aware of any other unique and interesting ways to explore an application, feel free to drop your opinions for the same in the comment section below.