What are the misconceptions that exist within software testing?

Software testing and software testers are too often misunderstood by the people around us.

So we asked the software testing community what they thought the misconceptions were. We gathered responses from Twitter, LinkedIn and Slack.

Below are the most relevant answers. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts! What have we missed?

Misconceptions that exist within software testing

That the people who do it, only do it because they couldn’t cut it as a [dev, BA, PM, etc] - Jeff Poulin

That it’s just trying to “break the system” - Jeff Poulin

That automation is making it irrelevant - Jeff Poulin

That automation is not real dev work. - Anita Squires

Anyone can test! That is easy - Sangeetha

Testing is “trying to break the system” - Sangeetha

Testers are only useful after the product is built. - Anita Squires

“There is no large career perspective” - Emma Ayadi

Testing is boring and repetitive :sleeping: - Rachel McCash

People with the job title “tester” are the only ones who do the activity of testing. - Ben Fellows

You should’ve caught that bug before it reached production - Will Ellis

That automation will find bugs - Mike Ruttenberg

Everything can (and should be) be automated - Mike Ruttenberg

That exploratory testing is not required any more - Mike Ruttenberg

That testers can assure quality. I’ll bring my insurance salesman’s suitcase, shall I? - Mike Ruttenberg

That’s a back end change, it doesn’t need testing - Will Ellis

Automation replaces manual testers :smile: - Julius King Chua

Good testing practices decrease velocity - Kylee Tilley

It is mainly a career stepstone for becoming a developer. - Christian Kram

“Hurr Durr anyone can do it” :roll_eyes: - Michael Fritzius

Developers shouldn’t test! - David Williams

There are none. - Santhosh Tuppad

Testers know how to test. (without having the knowledge). - Srinivas Kadiyala

Test must be separated from development / testing is not so valuable then development :see_no_evil: - Sven Schirmer

No one will ever do that. - Stephan Kämper

An address is easy to test. - Stephan Kämper

EVERYTHING can be automated and testers will be out of a job. - Mo

A script is only testing something from A to Z and should only take minutes to complete :joy: - Ben

Open source test automation tools have all the same functionality as licensed tools. - Paul Grossman

It’s not as important as the rest of the jobs. - Russell Johnston

Exploratory testing doesnt need strategy - SetsunidoAnimal

Testers need to write test cases… - Jan

Back in the day, people had to be ISTQB qualified to know what they’re doing - Ben

Or IIST certified. - Paul Grossman

When we complete templates, we are professionally testing software :roll_eyes: - Niels Thijssen

Good testing gives good quality. - Ronnie Østgaard

The labor quotient for every automation tool is the same. - PerfBytes

Testing makes us slower. - Johan Abildskov

Automation is time consuming, why do it. - Larry G

Manual testing is dead - Marie Drake

Test code may be as ugly as hell - as long as the tests run, everything is just fine. - Pascal Gugenberger

That it “only” takes a short period of time. - MC BriefKace

“Software in production has usually been thoroughly tested.” - Florian Schimdt

We need to repeat the same 3,487 tests over and over to ensure that we didn’t break anything. - Robert Strauch

Testing a product after it’s built ensures a quality product. - Carolyn Newham

Testing your own work is just as good having someone else take a pass. - Barbara Allen Hill

A test case should only test one thing. - Dave Martin

“Doesn’t matter if testing can’t be done before sprint end, we can deploy toggled off so we’ve still met the sprint goals!” Alas I have heard this said in all seriousness in several different organisations - Rachel Denyer

Every escaped bug had a missing test case … the default root cause :grimacing: - SumaCotha

Testing is an activity to ensure quality and catch all the things that were missed during development (like they are somehow mutually exclusive) regardless of how long is allocated to it. - Matt Brown

More testers == more quality - Kris Raven

Testers test - Thiago Grespi

With tool ‘X,’ any business analyst can do the job of a mature quality assurance practitioner. - PerfBytes

Only testers have to do it. - Marie

We can just cut the testing short at the end of the sprint. No worries…:scream: - Nick Roberts

Shamless plug :slight_smile: - Gaurav Singh

Any tester can test any application. Testers are inter changeable. - Irena

Only Testers are responsible for quality! - Sonal Sharma

We just click buttons :man_facepalming:t5: - Richard Forjoe

Having skilled testers to test aren’t needed. Developers and Business Analysts can do it. - Jeff MacBane

Biggest one - Testers are gatekeepers for Quality. - Prashant Hegde

That we are: Failed developers, bottlenecks, are only there to find bugs. - Adam Bardell

It’s not a team skill - Aj WIlson

100% test automation is possible - Louise Gibbs

Testing is done at the end of development. - Shafiq Ahmed

Zero bugs. - Vanessa Horacio

Automation guarantees 100% test coverage and is easy to do! - Andrew Shaw

“Testing fixes bugs” - no, it exposes them. - Dave Smith

“Testing breaks stuff” - no, it breaks your ILLUSION of stuff. - Dave Smith

“We can’t test until it’s built” - False. Test early, test often. - Dave Smith

“Testing delays releases” - kinda true… but I don’t see why testing should be blamed for finding the show-stopper that’s caused a release freeze. I’d blame them for the reverse: NOT finding it and letting it go into production. - Dave Smith

Last one: “we don’t do testing because we expect our engineers to develop high-quality code” - Dave Smith

That it is a waste of money. - Mark Fortune

Performance testing adds no value and you just click a button. - Mike Lilley

Non functional requirements don’t need to be measurable. The application just has to “feel” fast enough. - Mike Lilley

Performance testing has to be left until the end of the testing cycle. - Mike Lilley

Performance testers always load the application unrealistically. - Mike Lilley

They always try to block applications going live. - Mike Lilley

Performance testers don’t need requirements, data or capable infrastructure. - Mike Lilley

That testers in the video game industry just play games for a living. - Kevin Smale

And in addition to that: Testers from the video games industry cannot compete in other industries. - Jan TschĂśpe

As you don’t have enough skills to become a developer, you choose testing as your career. - Geetha Poluri

Testing = Checking and checking is all you need. - Inti Florez-Brandel

Testers can only do testing, and can’t contribute in the technical discussions . Personally experienced :slight_smile: - Harsh Bhardwaj

Automated testing is better than manual testing, and automated testing tools are a sound testing strategy that keeps testing costs low. - Faisal Humayun

You need qualifications to be a tester - John Stoddart

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You only need to use specifications to test the system against.

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I am actually quite surprised to see all that long list of misconceptions surrounding the software testing.

I believe it is more of an old-school approach that has confined the thoughts around the need for software testing services. I’ve been a part of software testing company for good time and I think development companies as well as all the industries including healthcare, manufacturing, retail, transportation, and even the government agencies with any kind of software requirements have started to realize the importance of software testing.

Software testing in my opinion is an approach to futuristic solutions that are more stable, secure, and high-performing.

I would love to have the take of other readers on my perspective of software testing and misconceptions about it.

Pretty sure a fair number of testers started out as games testers. LOL, hell, if you can be a tester in a games company, you have thick enough skin to be a good tester anywhere. We will even create a few tools to help you carry on being an awesome tester.

(How did this awesome thread stay dead for so long? It’s Friday, lets celebrate all the great things we do!)

It has already been mentioned in a few forms but, I like this one:
(Great)Testing is not as hard as development.

I partially agree, for example, if good/great/exceptional testing is not being done. And I rarely see something close to that for 1 in 30-50 testers.

Many things to highlight in this quote from Jerry Weinberg.

Jerry Weinberg:
"Even if you have a test group, testing is harder than developing and this is what they don’t know. That if you want to have good testing you need to put your best people in testing. Your smartest people and maybe a little different type of person, someone as we said who listens better, talks better, so it’s a very exceptional kind of person that makes a great tester. If you believe in that kind of thing then you should reward them better than you reward the developers. Instead, I go around and I find that people habitually pay their testers less than they pay their developers. That’s number one thing that is not understood"

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That (software) testing is engineering/computer science discipline first, rather than a psychology discipline supported by practices of engineering/computer science.

For more details, check out the first chapter of Weinberg’s “Perfect Software” book.

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QA deals in testing everything. It’s not only software but it can be website testing, Salesforce testing, data migration testing, web application testing, API integration testing etc.
There are a lot of misconceptions regarding this line of work, such as :

  1. It’s an easy task and anyone can do it.
  2. You are a tester because you could not be a developer.
  3. It’s just reading test cases and executing them.
  4. Automation can completely replace manual testing.
  5. Testing does not require any special skills.

QAs have to make and execute plans which are time bound. Testers also have deadlines for sure. Testers just don’t have to do positives but negative testing as well.
Coding knowledge is a must for automation tester as they have to design a whole framework for it.
So it is also a field where the tester has to keep up with everyday changing technology.

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My +1 on 100% test automation. Everything should not be automated. It is essential to prioritize test cases which you should automate.

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I must admit that is some impressive research that you have done to accommodate this whole list of misconceptions surrounding the software testing process. However, I believe I have a strong difference of opinion on all these above-mentioned statements as my perception of software testing confirms it to be a vital part of digital transformation initiatives.

In broader terms, software testing is the technique to create applications, software, and website that are highly reliable, safe to use, and are made to meet the business goals. It is an essential practice that allows end-users to enjoy products that actually meet their expectations surrounding functionality, performance, user interface, and anything that helps to create real products.

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We agree with what you’re saying. What we are sharing are some common misconceptions that members of the testing community experience.

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