Exploratory testing

Enhance conversions and customer experience by replicating the unscripted real-world behaviour and decision-making of your target users. Our exploratory software testing ensures your product performs flawlessly under real-world conditions.

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Uncovering hidden issues that affect customer experience

Defects in your apps and websites can frustrate users, hurt conversions, and damage your brand. Scripted or automated tests may confirm that specific journeys work, but they often miss issues that only real users can uncover.

Digivante’s exploratory testing puts your site through its paces from multiple perspectives, quickly revealing unexpected problems. This global, rapid feedback helps you refine your product to truly meet user expectations and enhance overall performance.

Surfaced issues can highlight new areas of concern which can be used to enhance existing regression test packs for future runs.

Digivante’s exploratory testing delivers

Coverage

With unrivalled platform and device coverage, we give you exceptional levels of flexibility by testing a wide combination of devices, browsers and operating systems.

Quality

With deep experience in uncovering issues, we typically find that 5% are critical, 20% are conversion blockers and 75% related to customer experience.

Speed

We have tens of thousands of testers in almost 160 countries who can deliver testing rapidly on any scale. We meet your need for speed with a fast turnaround, even within hours.

Flexibility

Once a test is configured it can be scheduled to run at any time or day. If you need to change timelines this can be done at the click of a button without any debate.

How we work with you

At Digivante, we combine the power of our global testing community with expert project management. Our fully-managed service ensures that every test is strategically executed and monitored, giving you peace of mind while we uncover critical issues. Through our intuitive portal, you gain instant access to results and insights, all while our QA experts oversee the entire process, from start to finish.

Verified & prioritised results

All defects raised are checked to ensure they are reproducible, non-duplicates and in scope. All verified defects are prioritised based on functional impact.

Wherever, whenever

Test when and where you want: we can mobilise testers from specific countries and run tests outside normal working hours.

Range of issues

Our exploratory testing covers functional, cosmetic and conversion issues.

Adaptable

You can test as broadly or narrowly as you want. Specify any focus areas e.g., areas of high risk where you think issues could be sitting.

Experienced

Digivante testers uncover an average of 200 defects against test environments and an average of 100 when run against live environments.

Continuous improvement

Continuously improve your app or website by proactively identifying opportunities for new features and functionality.

The value of Digivante as your exploratory testing partner

We take the waiting out of testing, by quickly mobilising our worldwide community of professional testers. Our testers have the freedom to apply their creativity and experience to uncover potential weak points and usability issues buried deep within your app or website.

Unlike in-house testers, they come to the testing assignment with no preconceptions about your app or website.

Exploratory testing works best when you run it alongside other testing. It’s designed to highlight issues rather than confirming consistent performance. It can be useful to run exploratory testing, alongside your regression pack, for example. You could pick up additional issues or highlight a particular gap in your regression test pack, so you can modify it for next time.

Digivante ran a 72-hour exploratory test for Figleaves and the company saw substantial conversion increases as a result. Mobile conversion increased by 12%, with Android mobile conversions alone increasing by 17% and conversions on iPad by 9%.

Get an exploratory testing demo

Book some time with one of our specialists to demo the service.

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Shift left/right exploratory testing

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Shift exploratory testing left

Running exploratory testing post-release can help you find quirks of behaviour that your customers might exhibit when they engage with the full site or app, beyond what you identified in earlier user tests. You can also use it to pick up cosmetic issues or spelling and grammar mistakes that were missed at go-live.

Woman in hijab in discussion with male co-worker

Shift exploratory testing right

Development teams using Agile and DevOps approaches can benefit from a loop of ongoing, actionable feedback delivered in real-time, so they can prioritise optimisation work as they go.
You can schedule exploratory testing for any point past the start of a sprint or after the development cut-off to return results in readiness for the next sprint.

Frequently asked questions

Where are your community testers based?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:21:57+00:00

Where are your community testers based?

Our community is truly global, with testers based in 149 different countries around the world.

How many testers are typically used on a project?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:22:18+00:00

How many testers are typically used on a project?

It depends on the project and client requirements, but typically it ranges from as few as 20 testers to as many as 200.

I think crowdtesting is too risky for my business. What data is shared with the tester community?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:15:07+00:00

I think crowdtesting is too risky for my business. What data is shared with the tester community?

We use the secure Digivante platform for all our testing data and reporting. Our testers are vetted and verified. We’ve worked with leading household names, from Microsoft and Metro Bank to Audi and Specsavers. They trust us to keep their testing secure and confidential. Talk to us about your specific needs and we’ll work with you to build a testing plan that meets all your security requirements.

Is outsourced web testing secure?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:24:00+00:00

Is outsourced web testing secure?

We know that confidentiality is a real concern when using remote testers. Our business depends on making our testing service secure so you can be certain we take the greatest care to provide exceptionally secure systems and services. We use three-way contractual protection between the customer, the testing organisation and the testers themselves. We’ve worked with leading household names, from Microsoft and Metro Bank to Audi and Specsavers. They trust us to keep their testing secure and confidential.

How do testers access my website environment?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:20:07+00:00

How do testers access my website environment?

That depends if you’re testing in live or pre-production test or staging environments. For live testing, testers receive the URL and can get to work straight away. For testing behind a firewall or in pre-production, we recommend using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). This allows multiple testers to access your securely; we can track them under a single IP address.

We have hundreds of issues in backlog – our dev team couldn’t cope with any moreCatherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:15:48+00:00

We have hundreds of issues in backlog – our dev team couldn’t cope with any more

An overstretched development team can be prone to making more mistakes, which incur costs and lead to even more testing. In our approach to QA, we seek to improve your capacity for dealing with software issues. The test cases we write are clear and simple to follow, even for non-tech people, so it’s easier to prioritise issues and deal with them quickly.

How experienced are your community testers?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:22:51+00:00

How experienced are your community testers?

We value quality a lot in our testing community. Before we accept them, testers take an exam to check their English language skills and assess their testing competency.

Does Digivante just do crowdtesting?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:23:30+00:00

Does Digivante just do crowdtesting?

No. We use crowdsourced testing for some services, like exploratory testing, executing test cases and accessibility testing. We combine human testing with automated testing, depending on the specific need. But we also support clients with usability testing, test strategy and planning through our team augmentation service. And we provide people to augment client teams, both short-term and long-term.

Why should I outsource testing when I have a QA team in house?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:17:44+00:00

Why should I outsource testing when I have a QA team in house?

Outsourcing your testing can bring economies of scale, efficiency and speed. It gives you access to a large variety of testing techniques and resources. If you have a small internal team you may not be able to do the breadth or depth of testing you really need before releasing a digital product. Outsourcing your test may save you money because you can apply the right type of testing at exactly the time you need it, without holding up development. You may be able to perform the testing earlier in the software development lifecycle too. Recruiting experienced testers can be hard. Outsourcing your testing takes that headache away.

How do you track the defects found during tests?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:21:11+00:00

How do you track the defects found during tests?

Each tester can raise defects on a defect report page on our central test reporting platform. This includes screenshots and video evidence, along with steps to reproduce the defect. Testers check that the defect hasn’t already been reported, so we don’t receive duplicate defect reports. Our QA managers double check the reports before releasing them to our clients.

How will external testers know how to test my website?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:20:28+00:00

How will external testers know how to test my website?

We always provide a clear brief before testing starts, so testers don’t need their own domain knowledge. We specify key focus areas and out of scope areas. We give testers guidance on the type of test. In exploratory testing, website testers have personal freedom to test any areas in scope. Or we can specify a more prescriptive approach, so testers execute specific steps within a test case. A Digivante delivery team member takes responsibility for the test scope and team and manages the quality and outputs.

How does your test community work?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:23:09+00:00

How does your test community work?

Our test community gives our clients access to thousands of professional testers in 149 different countries. That means we can deliver very rapidly – reducing days’ worth of conventional testing to a few hours when we mobilise our people all over the world.

Our web development partner handles all our testing – why do I need to consider a separate testing provider?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:16:24+00:00

Our web development partner handles all our testing – why do I need to consider a separate testing provider?

There’s a risk when you allow developers to ‘mark their own homework’. A fresh set of eyes will catch errors that the web developers won’t see. Independent testing gives you peace of mind that nothing’s been overlooked or hidden.

What testing capabilities do you cover?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:24:38+00:00

What testing capabilities do you cover?

Our testing capabilities are listed here. We cover a broad range including regression testing, accessibility testing, test automation, usability testing and more. We provide consultancy, service management and team augmentation. We deliver crowdtesting through our global Digivante professional tester community.

Crowdtesting might be faster, but is the quality of results any good?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:17:13+00:00

Crowdtesting might be faster, but is the quality of results any good?

Our crowdtesting community is thoroughly vetted for technical knowledge and communication skills. Community testers record the issues they find in videos, screenshots and detailed notes, so that faults can easily be recreated and resolved. All issues raised by the crowd testers are verified by senior Digivante testers.

Will website testing disrupt my release schedule?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:19:34+00:00

Will website testing disrupt my release schedule?

Not with Digivante. We work with you to understand your deadlines and constraints and plan our services to meet your targets. Crowdsourced testing can be delivered overnight and at weekends. With our large testing community and efficient techniques, we can carry out extensive testing in a shorter time. It’s not unusual for us to carry out 90 workdays of testing in 3 days, or 5 days of regression testing using traditional testing methods to just 5 hours.

What is community or crowd testing?Catherine Nottage2024-10-15T08:24:17+00:00

What is community or crowd testing?

Crowdtesting means using our community (or crowd) of vetted testers for rapid, large-scale testing on a range of devices and platforms. We use crowdtesting for exploratory testing and executing test cases. Our central teams manage quality control to make sure defects are reported clearly, with all duplicates compiled into a single report, and that defects can be reproduced.

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