5 Key Principles for Effective E-commerce Testing
Nilofar Jargela
Driving Excellence in Software Testing & Quality Assurance Services | Helping Startups for Web / Mobile Application Testing / Quality Assurance | SaaS Testing
Testing for e-commerce websites integrated with web and mobile applications is a vital need for retailers who have implemented custom e-commerce solutions.
Online retailers should aim to cater to
- Performance testing for online transactions to handle the peak load cycle in the holiday season.
- Perform Security testing to verify cyber-attacks and compliance with regulations; thus protecting buyers from identity theft.
- Usability testing to give a rich user experience and attracts them to revisits the website and buy.
With the emerging Omni Channel retailing trends, it has become important for e-Commerce websites to perform consistently across all channels. E-commerce business is based on diverse software applications, mobile apps, and unified integrated systems. Robust test management and test automation play an important role in this situation. Test automation helps in faster time to market while a robust test case helps in making the entire process more effective. Test automation can help in identifying the required changes and take appropriate actions.
Key Principles
1. Efficient test management for effective results
Test management helps in developing a robust risk management process. Effective test strategy and planning is needed for developing effective applications. Detailed testing planning and test coverage add value to the execution process too.
2. Cross-platform Test environment to avoid uncertainties
It would be expensive to develop a test environment for e-commerce since it includes multiple platforms. Cross-platform testing is important for online retailers in this respect. In e-commerce, cross-platform development also includes cross-browser adaptability. Users should be able to use the site concurrently and securely on multiple browsers and platforms. Hence, it is important to have the right mix of automated tools to perform load testing and performance testing.
3. End-User focussed UAT to ensure adoption
At the end of the development process, it is vital to pass the user acceptance assessment. For continued performance, there should be security testing performed to make sure that the user is securely able to perform actions on the website. Usability and experience are two of the most important aspects affecting user behavior and hence, user acceptance testing is a must for e-commerce systems.
4. Test Automation for quick Go-to-Market Cycle
Test automation requires a robust test strategy, planning, scripting and the right mix of resources. It can help in avoiding the site being an expensive disaster. Test automation helps in faster time-to-market and reduces the cost of ownership in the long run. If a team of developers is building an e-commerce website from scratch, each iteration and feature release needs to be tested. Automation testing helps to save a lot of time and operational costs especially when the web version and the mobile version of the website under a simultaneous testing phase at any single point in time.
5. Regression Testing for predictability and robustness
User expectations are always increasing and they are now spending more time researching and buying products and services online owing to enhanced security measures on shopping carts. New feature enhancements with frequent releases to match user expectations have boosted user experience to another level. Regression testing helps in ensuring that faults are uncovered with the number of changes. It helps drastically when one can ensure that the functionality would not change, even after there are continuous changes in the environment.
The E-commerce industry is facing challenges with newer trends, increased user expectations and higher cyber-attacks. Hence it is highly important to have a robust test strategy along with an intelligent automation process to compete and succeed in the market.