Exploratory Testing is not so much a thing that you do; it’s far more a way that you think.“, by Michael Bolton on Twitter.

In this blog, we are going to look at Exploratory Testing and How To leverage QA Touch for Exploratory Testing.

What is Exploratory Testing?

Exploratory Testing is a methodology in software testing with simultaneous learning, test design, and test execution.

Exploratory Testing is performed to detect issues in the software without any detailed requirements documentation or test scripting. Unlike the predefined steps, the tester needs to think of out-of-the-box scenarios with creative ideas to apply those in this testing approach. It helps the tester to find major issues without spending an awful lot of time doing so.

When Do We Need Exploratory Testing?

When we follow Agile Methodology, Exploratory Testing plays a very critical role.
To understand how a new project/product will work.
To save time in testing.
When a new team member is added to the project/product.
When we don’t have detailed requirements/documents are not available.

How To Do Exploratory Testing?

Exploratory Testing

Before starting exploratory testing needs, discovery and learning about the application are critical. During exploratory testing, we need to focus on the important workflows to find unidentified issues faster. The below picture shows the process of exploratory testing in QA Touch:

To simplify the exploratory testing, mindmap is a handy tool. We are going to see how to do exploratory testing in QA Touch with a small example below.

In a B2B eCommerce site, a new payment option, Pay by Credit, is introduced along with the existing payment method Card. For this, we can draw a small mindmap in QA Touch. You can access the Mindmap menu link from the project name – Mindmap. The below mindmap was drawn with QA Touch’s inbuilt mindmap tool.

Mindmap Payment

After preparing the mindmap, you can write exploratory test cases to execute these scenarios with the exploratory test case template. The exploratory test case template will have only the Test Case Title as a mandatory field. You can select the module and write test cases.

Create a test run with these exploratory test cases. After the creation of the test run, start to execute the test cases.

A good bug report is necessary, as it allows anyone to understand and fix the reported issues.

You can report the issues in QA Touch’s inbuilt issue tracking tool. You can add the video file by doing a screen recording of the issue with the steps to reproduce the issue. It will be a great help for the developers and the project stakeholders. The complete defect cycle can be managed in QA Touch.

You can generate the reports Releases Summary/Test Runs Summary and share the snapshot with the project’s stakeholders. Also, you have an option to share the team dashboard report.

About The Author Bhavani R

Bhavani is the Director of Product Management at QA Touch and a seasoned leader in product management. With certifications as a Scrum Product Owner, Digital Product Manager, and Software Test Manager, Bhavani brings a wealth of expertise to her role. She also holds a Six Sigma Green Belt and has been a featured speaker at the Guild 2018 Conference. Her passion extends beyond product management to testing, blogging, reading, and cooking, making her a well-rounded leader with a keen eye for both technical and creative pursuits.