As technology advances, every business is moving its business from physical offices to websites and Web applications to grow online. This leads to a range of updated testing techniques that cater to the best product or service for the end user. Many testing techniques (such as cross-browser testing, user acceptance testing, regression testing) become obvious before launching any software, website, or application. Another testing technique needed to ensure the best user experience and stable functionality is exploratory testing.

Unlike other testing techniques, exploratory testing does not have a fixed set of methods that testers must follow, but instead, testers have complete freedom to discover product/service improvements over time. It’s more like continuous improvement over time and as the site or application is developed.

Let’s take a closer look at what exploratory testing is, why it’s so important, how it’s done, the challenges of implementing it, the pros and cons and the reasons why it differs from other scripting techniques, and the details of interim testing and its future.

What is exploratory testing?

As the name suggests, exploratory testing is based on a tester’s ability to explore a site or application to make it better over time. This is an important activity in agile software development, where the development and test cycles are tightly integrated.

Exploratory tests, while black-box, consider the software as a whole, without going into the details of the various elements that make up the software. This is a very spontaneous testing approach where testers learn, understand, explore, and test the software simultaneously in unplanned ways. In contrast to scripted testing, which typically scripts test plans, test cases, and test steps before practice testing, exploratory testing occurs as testers discover and learn about the site or application themselves.

It emphasizes testers’ creativity, autonomy and skills, which is different from other testing methods that follow a fixed methodological approach.

Why is exploratory testing important

Exploratory testing is an important activity in the practice of agile software development. In the Agile sprint, the software was developed with multiple releases every few weeks. This means that development and testing times are limited and need to be completed in a shorter time frame. Therefore, in order to accommodate agility, exploratory testing is conducted in small iterations because it is less time consuming and therefore can be automated to complement the quality assurance of each version of the software.

Automated testing takes care of regression testing, while exploratory testing tests new features in upcoming releases. It ensures powerful features, a better user experience, and notifies the team about possible problems by constantly learning and using each release.

How do I do exploratory testing

Exploratory testing involves a close combination of discovery, investigation, and learning. This is because it is not pre-planned, unlike scripted testing, where test plans, test cases, and test procedures are developed before starting to test the software.

In exploratory testing, a small amount of time is spent planning. Instead, devote the maximum time to test execution. To perform exploratory testing, all you need to do is highlight the scenarios covered by your plan as part of the test planning phase.

While most of the focus is on test execution, key learning that occurs simultaneously throughout the testing process is implemented during test execution to enhance the software.

During exploratory test execution, key features are identified by exploring and discovering the software and reported defects are documented. These deficiencies will be further analyzed to address and enhance product services.

Exploratory testing is conducted in this manner for agile software development learning, test design, execution, and analysis.

What are the different types of exploratory testing?

Based on exploratory testing of this approach, the following are different types of exploratory testing techniques:

1. Scenario-based exploratory testing

Scenario-based exploratory testing is what happens when users browse and test specific scenarios or features. Based on learning and observing a website or application and its functionality, testers can use exploratory testing techniques to explore and find defects in different situations. They tend to use schema-based exploratory testing to examine different possibilities.

2. Policy-based exploratory testing

This type of exploratory testing approach is based on strategies such as boundary value analysis, risk assessment, equivalence techniques, etc. To perform policy-based exploratory testing, testers must be familiar with the site or application functionality to be able to operate efficiently for better results.

3. Freestyle exploratory testing

Freestyle exploratory testing is mainly used when testers want to do a quick smoke test. As the name implies, it does not have any clear test method, scenario, or test scope, instead, testers investigate defects in a free manner. To be able to do freestyle exploratory testing effectively, testers must be familiar with the site or application so they can easily master defects without any detailed planning.

This way, as a tester, you can use different types of exploratory testing techniques to thoroughly examine a website or application to ensure improved products or services for a better end-user experience with each release.

The pros and cons of exploratory testing

Exploratory testing has become a ready-made testing method. Here are the advantages of using exploratory testing techniques when testing your application or website:

  • It does not require extensive test planning, which is usually time-consuming, which slows down the process.
  • It is very consistent with the business availability and domain of the product/service.
  • Exploratory testing can be very effective for short-term projects.
  • It is on a par with agile software development.
  • It often contains errors that remain undetected when tested using other technologies.
  • This can be beneficial when the requirements document is not available. One of the biggest drawbacks of exploratory testing is that it is entirely dependent on the skill of the tester, so if the tester’s skill level is not high, it will not be as effective as it should be. Another disadvantage is that it is often difficult to trace test cases back and test again due to the lack of scripts.

What makes exploratory testing difficult?

While exploratory testing may seem easy enough, there are a number of challenges to implementing it. Here are some of the challenges encountered during exploratory testing:

  • Due to the lack of documentation, it is often a difficult task to trace defects, especially over time.
  • A lot of test execution depends on the skill of the tester, and if the tester is not diligent, it may be difficult to achieve the desired results.
  • It may not be suitable for large projects with long timetables, as it may be difficult to cover all possible areas without proper formal documentation.
  • It requires good domain knowledge and better instructions to delve into the product and find errors and defects.
  • It is difficult to review test cases later. By overcoming the challenges mentioned above during exploratory testing, you can use agile methods to enhance cross-release products/services.

The fallacy of exploratory testing

Exploratory testing has a lot of fallacies. Let’s debunk some common myths associated with exploratory testing.

1. Exploratory tests are the same as AD hoc tests

Exploratory testing is a more formal type test, while AD hoc testing is carried out on a more random side. Ad-hoc is requirements-based, whereas exploratory is a workflow-based testing technique. The difference between exploratory and impromptu testing is clear.

2. Exploratory testing cannot be quantified

Just because the test plan is not documented does not mean that exploratory tests are not documented and quantifiable. In fact, it focuses more on test execution, and the defects explored are well documented. Therefore, exploratory testing can be effectively quantified.

3. Exploratory testing is not planned at all

It’s just that exploratory testing doesn’t allocate much time or importance to test planning, and both scenarios and strategies are planned prior to exploratory testing execution. Because, unlike other scripting technologies, they are well documented, this does not mean that exploratory testing is not planned at all.

4. Exploratory testing takes more time than scripted testing

A common misconception about exploratory testing is that it takes more time than scripted testing, but in reality, exploratory testing takes less time because all the test planning and scripting time is saved in exploratory testing. Because of its low cost nature, exploratory testing is used in agile methods, where the duration between two Agile sprints is reduced to a week or less.

5. Exploratory testing is only for small teams

It is a common misconception that exploratory testing is limited to small teams. Exploratory testing is also done effectively by larger teams that collaborate with other testing methods for agile software development.

6. Exploratory testing is only for Agile teams

Although most Agile teams use exploratory testing techniques with automated testing, this obviously does not mean that exploratory testing is limited to agile teams. In fact, exploratory testing can be used effectively by any software development team that is looking for a quick test session while exploring and understanding the website/application agenda. For this reason, exploratory testing is often very popular among startups.

Not to be confused with script testing techniques

Different from the traditional script testing technology, exploratory testing is an unconventional testing technology. While using scripted testing techniques, test cases can be identified in advance from requirements documents, these steps are not followed for exploratory testing.

Unlike scripted testing, which relies primarily on validation, exploratory testing relies more on testers investigating the site/application as they browse. Exploratory testing provides testers with a free and autonomous way to do things their own way without having to follow any scripts that are the opposite of scripted testing techniques. Unlike exploratory testing, documentation is still one of the highlights of scripted testing techniques.

This approach to exploratory testing is a free, out-of-the-box testing technique that is largely discovery-based, involves less planning and documentation, reduces time, and differs from scripted testing techniques.

Not to be confused with AD hoc tests

Although exploratory testing may look like AD hoc testing because of its freestyle testing, in reality, exploratory testing is very different from AD hoc testing. While AD hoc testing is a completely random testing method, exploratory testing is more about formalizing the solution to be tested.

Interim testing requires initial learning, whereas exploratory testing involves browsing the site/application and running concurrently with testing. Documentation is required for AD hoc tests, but not for exploratory tests. Unlike AD hoc testing, exploratory testing requires workflows to execute tests. In this way, exploratory testing is different from AD hoc testing.

Does exploratory testing have a future?

Gone are the days when scripted testing was the only way to do user acceptance testing. As technology moves toward user-centric development, even testing techniques must be adapted in the same way to enhance the user experience with each upcoming release. This user-centric approach to software development and agility offers a bright future for exploratory testing and automated testing of software products and services.

Given the time constraints for new releases, exploratory testing would be an ideal solution to use with automated testing to ensure the quality of fully functional, powerful, stable, and user-centric software.

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