Overcoming The
Challenges Faced
In Exploratory
Testing
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Understanding and
expectations
This point is valid not only for the
tester but also the client. It is very
important to understand the
qualitative benefits of exploratory
testing rather than focusing on the
quantity and amount of resource
utilization.

Documentation (Lack
of it
We know how regular (scripted)
testing works. The team prepares
a strategy for the testing process,
creates a well-documented plan,
sends it to the team to obtain the
necessary approvals. This
document includes the reference
terms, the plan of action the
strategy, and the test scripts
which are to be used.

Like documentation, logging is
extremely important. Going by the
thumb rule, “Log as you execute” will
make things easier for you as a tester.
Moreover, logging in any form helps
you create evidence for the efforts that
have been put in irrespective of the
outcome or delay.
Logging Progress update
Communication is key and when
working with exploratory testing it can
lack. But keeping the team and the
client updated about the latest
progress will make it easier to execute
the work without undue pressure and
also display your effort. Updating the
team could be as simple as Sharing the
logs with them.
Now that we know this as a another one of common challenges of exploratory
testing let us understand how we can minimize its impact on our working.

The oracle problem
According to Wikipedia,
“Determining the correct output
for a given input (and a set of
program/system states) is known
as the oracle problem or test
oracle problem” . This is a much
harder problem than it seems and
involves working with problems
related to controllability and
observability.

When we talk about testing, a common
misconception about a tester is that
testing is intended to ‘identify’ bugs
document their behaviours well. But as
a tester, it is important to understand
that creativity and innovation are
essential to a well-designed product,
even the testing phase.
Negative testing

Timing the execution
Another common issue while ensuring
best practices in exploratory testing is
not knowing when to adapt to
exploratory testing. In fact, when it
comes to exploratory testing it is more
important to know when to run it than
how to. This is also important because of
the lack of test cases.
Exploratory testing is considered more
informal than scripted testing thus
making it unfit for auditing purposes.
This is why not knowing how to time it
can have a negative impact on the entire
working.

Organize Your Test Cycle
Exploratory testing involves venturing
into the unknown and trying to find
faults that might get missed by scripts
and other traditional forms of testing.
The benefits that we get is that critical
bugs can be caught through this method.
EXPLORATORY TESTING BEST PRACTICES
ONE

Add Checkpoints
Exploratory Testing is a time-consuming
process and this might often lead to long
spells of no information regarding the
testing progress. To avoid multiple teams
from waiting on the entire testing
process to complete, it is highly
recommended that certain checkpoints
be set by the testers.
TWO

As it is with any kind of exploration,
there will not be a fixed path that can be
traversed while testing an application.
This would make testing an open-ended
problem with countless paths to identify
bugs and vulnerabilities within the
system.
THREE
Record The Entire
Process

Real users of the application don’t
usually have a supervised guidance or a
manual that gives the best way to use an
application. Based on the users’ intuition
and experience using other similar
applications, they might use the same
feature of an application in multiple
ways.
FOUR
Aim to be a User

Unlike the traditional testing methods,
the aim of exploratory testing isn’t to
test the entire application. Sometimes,
the testing is performed to address a
specific need. The specific need can be to
identify security threats to critical
modules of an application or to discover
the points of failure in a new module that
has been added to the UI.
FIVE
Define the Scope
of Testing

The bugs encountered while performing
Exploratory testing should be
appropriately prioritized and classified.
Every organization has a process where
they classify the most frequently
encountered bugs. This classification
could be on the basis of various
functionality offered by the application.
SIX
Prioritize and
Classify Your Bugs

Bug reporting is an art and one that
needs to be performed with caution and
concentration. Make sure you provide a
unique yet relevant title to the bug for
easy identification. It is always
recommended as a best practice to
provide the steps to reproduce.
Prepare an informative
bug report
SEVEN

Exploratory testing has its own set of challenges, some of which we discussed above.
Yet, it is a revolutionary method of testing which ensures a well-tested and well
thought of product leaving a very little scope for common error apart from technical
errors which can be taken care of by automation. Thus, it will be ideal to say that
despite its challenges, exploratory testing is very important to the testing process.
Feel free to share about your experience with exploratory testing in the comment
section below. If you have got some questions for us then we will be happy to
answer them. Happy testing!
CONCLUSION

HAPPY TESTING!!
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