How Far Can You Go When Searching for Bugs?

Let’s imagine that you’re a tester who has just found a bug in your software. How far are you ready to go to examine it comprehensively?
One way or another, but it all depends on the program and the team you’re working with. Therefore, the common answer to that question can be the following – you can keep going until tests are beneficial.

At least, the tester should be able to ensure that the error is actually a defect and make a list of reasons for its occurrence.

What rule does this contradict?

1. Non-compliance with requirements;
2. Violation of the standard.

You should go so far in your research, to see if the bug can be reproduced or not. At least, you should try to isolate the test scenario with the defect.

Is It Worth Fixing?

Sometimes, inexperienced QA can wonder if it is worth going so far to find the solution.

The answer is probably, yes. But on the condition that:

• You can do it;
• If your actions are within the scope of the overall testing process;
• If you vouch for doing it as well and as quickly as another QA engineer who can follow you to complete the task.

If you feel you can’t do it well, you probably shouldn’t even start.

Maybe you should try to go so far as to be able to share all the data you need for your work with the person who follows you.

Use Verification Questions

An example
You are working for a software testing company, you are testing a website and you find one broken link in the menu. What will you do next?

• Will you create a screenshot of this link? A photo of the mouse clicking on the broken link? And then bring all the photo and text data into the bug-tracking system.
• Analyze if the link should be in this particular place. If so, where should it lead? Then you make a note in the bug report, where you explain on which particular page you found the error and the search term with which it (the link) can be found in the code.
• You examine the HTML markup, request administrator rights to access files on the production, and change the achieved.
• Code, then release a new HTML document.

What Conclusion Can Be Drawn?

Follow the golden rule of 80-20, where 20 percent of effort results in 80 percent of profit.

If you need to spend more effort and knowledge on the process of finding bugs than the person who will fix the defect after you, then you’ve gone too far.

If your analyses are starting to circulate smoothly around the editing process, you’ve gone too far.

If your colleagues have to ask a lot of questions about the defects you find to fix them, you haven’t gone far enough.