Things you need to follow while performing Regression Testing

Viral Patel
3 min readMar 7, 2018

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Image Credit : https://www.semanticscholar.org

It’s impractical to cover every aspect of your application with regression tests.

Okay, so how exactly do you test for regressions? In a nutshell, you perform regression testing by re-executing the same tests after each update.

Passing tests ensure that your code continues to function as expected. Once a test that passed during previous runs fires a failure, you know that you’re dealing with a regression.

As a rule, it’s a good practice to run tests before the release of every new version of your product. A typical routine incorporates the following stages

Selecting which portions of the system to retest

Execution of test cases (manually or automated).

Here’s another essential thing to note. In theory, regression testing applies to any testing level, including unit, API/integration, system and acceptance testing.

There is a widespread convention, though, that regression testing is mostly a part of system testing.

Picking test cases to execute in regression testing depends on the business impact, frequency of use, and criticality of the functionality.

Taking these steps into consideration can significantly reduce the testing efforts and yield better results.

Decide what suits best for you

Full Testing

This regression testing technique strives to achieve a complete coverage of all possible issues during every test run.

This approach boils down to running all tests after every modification introduced to the project. In some instances, there is no way to predict which parts of the system a change will affect.

In such cases, only full regression testing can guarantee that the system will perform well.

Regression Test Selection

Organize your tests into suites that correspond to modules of your program.

During each testing session, your QAs will retest only the modules that are likely to be affected by the change.

Each run focuses on the functionality that’s relevant for a particular release.

When following this approach, it’s vital to make sure that it gives you higher ROI than the Retest All technique.

Test Case Prioritization

Prioritizing tests is another way to optimize the testing process. With Test Case Prioritization, your QA team still runs all tests, but it decides on which ones to run first.

Strategize your regression plan

  1. Emphasis should be on Highly-Trafficked Paths

The most frequent use cases for your application are the paths that are highly-trafficked. You should recognize the fundamental group of users and the usual features and communications they are most dependent on.

2. Update Your Regression Pack Regularly

A regression pack is an assortment of test cases that are implemented as a new software update is completed. Ad-hoc or random tests may also be included in this pack. Keeping your regression pack up to date is a great idea.

3. Automate

Automated regression testing can help in making the procedure much more efficient. Automated regression testing can liberate your testers to work on the complicated case specific tests, helping in generating better ROI.

4. Re-Run Successful Test Cases

Tests that have previously identified bugs and defects are also worth including in your regression pack. On the other hand, tests that the program passes reliably are good contenders for archival.

5. Remember about ROI

You need to know about all expenses associated with automation tool. Also, how much time and specialists will you need to run testing suite? Asking yourself questions of this sort will help you buildan efficient and cost-effective testing strategy.

With continuous integration and improvements, one cannot take chances with the quality of the product.

Assuming that your website will work just since only a few changes have been made is a big, big mistake.

You can prevent such bug leakages if only you perform regression testing religiously before any product release.

Happy Testing!

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Viral Patel
Viral Patel

Written by Viral Patel

Co Founder at QAble.io #Automation Tester,#Selenium Developing a New Automation tools: Connect Me for more details about it