You take your car to a mechanic to get the air conditioning fixed and when you get it back, the air conditioning is fixed but the gas tank sensor no longer works.
Something similar can happen to a software in the making. A new feature or update in the code can make the software return to a former or unwanted state, making it affect the rest of the functionalities. This bug in software is a regression.
“A software regression is a software bug that makes a feature stop functioning as intended after a certain event and the process of testing software for regression is called regression testing.”
- Regression testing increases the chances of detecting bugs that might have introduced after changes in the software
- It ensures better performance and faster time-to-market of the product due to early identification and fixing of bugs & errors
- For software applications where changes are frequently introduced, regression testing helps to maintain product quality
Regression Testing: Types and their Benefits
Depending upon how scalable a product is and how frequently changes or updates are introduced, there are different ways software can be tested for regression. There are five ways regression testing can be done:
1. Corrective Regression Testing
This type of testing is done when no changes in product specification are made. Thus, the already existing test cases can be used to conduct the desired test.
2. Retest-All Regression Testing
This way of testing software involves testing all aspects of a product and reusing all test cases, even if no changes have been made. Since this type of testing requires putting in a lot of efforts, it is recommended not to go for it if there is a minor change in the existing product.
3. Selective Regression Testing
This way of testing software involves analyzing the impact of a new code on an existing one. In this type of regression testing, a subset of existing test cases is used in order to reduce the efforts of retesting.
4. Progressive Regression Testing
This type of testing works when changes in program specifications are done and new test cases are designed. This test is conducted to ensure that no feature in the previous version has been compromised in the new version.
5. Complete Regression Testing
This testing type works best when multiple changes are made in the existing code. It is important to do complete regression testing when the new code has a certain impact on the root code of the software. Once this testing is done, the product can be made available for the users.
Regression Testing: Challenges and How to Overcome Them
While regression testing ensures error-free code and product delivery to users, it takes up a lot of time of the QA time. Performing tests over and again on the code and writing new test cases for a project may take a lot of time of a QA team. This may ultimately put a question to the ROI of the quality analysis team.
To overcome the challenges associated with regression testing, the idea is to automate it. Automating regression testing frees up testers from conducting manual testing for casual cases. Also, not all software regressions are caused due to updates or bug fixes. They can be an effect of a database update, new browser version (if it's a web app), etc.
ALSO READ: Correlation vs Regression Made Easy: Which to Use & Why?
Regression Testing: Getting Started with its Automation
Automation Testing have some unarguable benefits, including faster time-to-market, human error elimination, maximization or ROI (Quality Analysis team), makes possible to test complicated business logics, etc. In the long run, automating regression testing allow organizations to eliminate human dependency for testing use cases.
However, before you get started with automation testing for a project, it is highly recommended to acknowledge if testing should be automated for it or not. To understand how automation can help your organization achieve a faster delivery rate and improve ROI of the QA team, schedule a consultation session with our tech-experts through our free consultation program.
