How to Use Regression Testing to Stave off Bugs and Enhance Quality

Creating, developing, and maintaining a product that can expertly and easily handle the issues of its consumers is called software development. Software development primarily includes developing the source code and keeping it in excellent shape. Market research, requirement analysis, and other organization-related processes are also involved in it.

Software development is impossible without code modifications, which makes code quality a genuine challenge—especially when you are working under pressure as every little change may have an unanticipated, even invisible, effect on the rest of your code base. The errors, known as software regressions in quality assurance, are flaws that occur throughout the course of development and have the potential to make your whole software solution or individual features cease working as intended. Regression tests are used to fight with them and this blog-post will focus on what regression testing looks like. Read on.

What Is Regression Testing?

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When a software is created, it is only published once that particular organization is certain that it functions and meets expectations. The program may then be updated to provide new features or functions that will offer value for the user.Updates do, however, sometimes fail. The introduction of new features, despite thorough testing, may have led to the failure of existing functionality.

Naturally, you want to be able to upgrade the program while keeping the features that are currently in it. The last thing on earth you would want as a tester or an organization owner is for your product to regress or perform poorly.

Significance Of Regression Testing

Agile approach places an emphasis on more rapid and iterative development, where features are added to the product throughout each cycle, and the product is built in sprints. In order to provide a suitable balance between iterative testing cycles, sprint development and testing cycles should ideally be kept short. Regression testing must go hand in hand with feature deployment since developers release features more quickly in an agile setting.

In an agile environment, developers create new features and add to or enhance the code while also doing regression testing on both the new and the existing features. Partial (iteration) and complete (major) regression testing types are the two ways this regression testing approach is used in an agile context. Only the features created during the iteration are evaluated in partial regression testing, while the whole product is checked before release in full or complete regression testing. As the product is tested in sprints to assure defect-free software, this black-box software testing methodology in an agile setting provides better resolution of flaws.

Continuous Testing, Continuous Development, Continuous Monitoring, Continuous Delivery, and Continuous Feedback are some of the processes that make up the DevOps technique, which is an extension of the agile methodology. To enable speedier delivery of bug-free software, DevOps makes sure that software is continually developed, tested, and corrected.

Regression testing is carried out in the DevOps environment at each level of the DevOps cycle and after each change. This kind of testing is carried out whenever new code is added to a piece of software to verify that it still functions properly after the modifications. Before proceeding to the final production step in DevOps, a quicker feedback loop aids in issue fixes at each level. Regression testing, which assures the delivery of reliable and high-quality software even after frequent modifications, is thus particularly important in the DevOps context.

Benefits Of Regression Testing

Here are some of the benefits that regression testing has to offer.

Reduces testing costs and time: An efficient regression testing approach makes sure that tests are finished as quickly as possible so that organizations may enter the market. An effective testing procedure makes sure that the previous issues do not reappear, avoiding the expense of bug fixes.
Identifies and fixes problems: There is a high potential that bugs will be created when changes are made to software, either new bugs or bugs that have already been present. To find and fix the defects that appear in software following frequent code changes, an efficient regression testing procedure supported by a sound testing strategy is necessary.
Channelizes the efforts of the testing team: A strong testing strategy clearly defines the duties and responsibilities of the testers, prevents misunderstandings, and makes sure that the QA teams are motivated and knowledgeable about the testing process. It makes sure that the teams’ testing efforts are focused in the right way to provide successful testing outcomes.
Easy to manage testing complexity: Over time, the regression testing process inevitably becomes huge and intricate. A sound regression testing approach defines the management and handling of complicated regression test suites more effectively and effortlessly.
Optimizes the use of resources and testing equipment: An effective regression testing strategy requires meticulous preparation to guarantee that the teams are aware of their roles and responsibilities well in advance. To maximize advantages, appropriate regression testing techniques and resources may be designed.

How To Use Regression Testing to Stave off Bugs and Enhance Quality?

Below-mentioned are the ways through which you can utilize regression testing to stave off bugs and enhance quality.

New test cases for change impact

As new features and modifications are added to the program, existing functionality is combined with them. These integrations are infamously challenging and prone to mistakes and issues. This implies that you may enhance your regression test approach by looking at the consequences of changes and integrations of various modules, systems, or sub-systems.

Finding the integration points and the effects of updates, new features, and bug fixes on existing features and functionality is the tricky part. To test and confirm the accuracy of the integrated application, create additional test cases. These test cases may now be included in your regression suite.

Keep a close eye on the changes

Keeping a careful watch on changes is essential while doing regression testing. Regression testing is carried out whenever an application is modified. Therefore, you must thus pay close attention to changes in the requirements and how they affect the functioning of the application. Then you will need to change the test cases in your test suite, including adding new test cases, eliminating old test cases, and altering any anticipated outcomes or test procedures.

Regression test suite should be regularly upgraded

Regression test suites should be stored somewhere. For every new integration or update, develop new test cases and include them in the regression test suite. It is also possible to shift some of the current test cases to the list of regression test cases. Keeping track of all test cases in one location for execution throughout each regression test cycle serves the aim.

You must carefully choose which test cases to include in your regression test suite since not all test cases are appropriate for a regression test suite. Screening test cases on a regular basis is one method to guarantee the correctness and effectiveness of test suites. To assist you improve your regression test suite, test cases may be divided into three categories: reusable, re-testable, and outdated. A well-maintained regression test suite might be helpful when it comes to doing effective regression testing.

Regular removal of outdated test cases

Regression testing is difficult for the quality assurance team to complete because of a lack of time and resources as well as intense management pressure, as was discussed in the section on challenges with regression testing. Therefore, it is essential that the quality assurance manager regularly cleans up the regression test suite. As a result, the QA will be able to maintain their priorities and provide their whole attention to performing the necessary test cases.

Let’s take an example.

You may get rid of test cases for criteria that are no longer relevant. Otherwise, there can be a disagreement if the original and amended criteria suggest two distinct things. Similar to this, you likely created a test case and verified its functionality to certify the integration of two modules, say Module A and Module B. The functioning of integrated Module AB has not been impacted by any requirement or modification. The test cases that were developed for the integrated Module AB verification may now be deleted.

Determine the Troublesome Areas

Another essential component of effective regression testing is concentrating on the problem regions. Due to ‘n’ number of factors, including the developer’s skill, complexity level of each module, and the clarity of the requirements, certain software modules have fewer mistakes than others. This is also evident in the bug reports, which demonstrate that certain modules have more challenges than others.

You can determine which areas are the most troublesome by looking at the bug reports. Similar to that, you may look at user-reported problems that occurred as a consequence of poor regression testing. This will provide you a clear picture of any trouble locations or difficult integration points. You must thus focus and give testing of these dangerous areas top priority. Take great care not to remove the related test cases while cleaning up the regression test suite on a regular basis.

Random User Scenarios Testing

No matter how meticulous you were while developing test cases or how many options you covered, nothing beats random testing in the end. Set aside some time for the application’s random testing. These random testing could cover the whole of a process cycle. You might also put yourself in the position of different customers and attempt to represent actual user interactions with the system.

Choose how often to run your tests

After creating your regression testing suite, you must choose how often you want the tests to run. Before letting an insect out, be sure you have not allowed a swarm of new bugs in. Regression testing should thus be carried out whenever the code is changed, according to this. This can only be done with automation if your software system is big enough.

Keep shifting your staff

This is more of a management of human resources problem. The motivation and interest of the people under the quality assurance manager’s control should be a top priority. Regression testing performed repeatedly by the same tester may cause him to lose interest, grow uninterested, or develop tunnel vision. He will ultimately stop being motivated, the testing will become worse, and bugs will enter the live release. As a consequence, it is advisable to continually rotate your staff and give new testers responsibility for regression testing.

Pick a regression testing strategy.

How much of your testing, though, need to be automated? The answer to this issue is heavily influenced by your testing methodology. Will you create all of your test cases in advance and strictly adhere to them during testing, or will you choose a more exploratory methodology where your testing is more ad hoc and unstructured?

Ideally, the strategy you choose should lie on a continuum between the two. The agile software development team benefits greatly from automation and actually relies on it to execute regression tests more quickly. However, it does have its limits, and in order to take use of automation, one must be aware of them.

The drawback—which may alternatively be seen as an advantage—is that your robots will only do the checks you want them to. Nothing more or less is appropriate. The tests you previously put up to test the product as it was at a certain time, may no longer match what the product looks like at a later time, as your software develops and changes, your testing needs must also expand and evolve.

Critical thinking becomes essential to the testing procedure at this point. Reviewing and assessing the test findings is the responsibility of the testing team. When properly implemented, automation may free up testers’ time so they can focus on developing and improving tests.

Conclusion

We believe you now have a clear understanding of regression testing. Regression testing should be run whenever there is any kind of code change, no matter how tiny. There are several methods for doing regression testing, including Corrective Regression Testing, Retest-All Strategy, Progressive Regression Testing, and Selective Strategies. In order to run high priority tests first, carrying out exploratory testing, etc. are some recommendations for tactics relating to regression testing. Regression testing saves you time and effort even if it uses a lot of resources. The agile software development life cycle makes life easier for developers and testers while producing the highest possible output. Remember that if you believe that regression testing is difficult, there are always platforms like LambdaTest available to assist you. For pixel-by-pixel comparison and visual UI mismatch detection, you may also use LambdaTest to jumpstart your visual regression testing journey.

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