Software testing is an important part of the software development industry. The main objective of software testing is to find and fix detects in the software that are mainly caused by human errors. Some of these errors are unimportant and may not harm the software product functionality in any way. However, there are also errors which may become expensive and dangerous during the latter part of software development lifecycle. Hence, software testing is a necessary part of software industry.

It is very common for humans to make mistakes and so, we assume that the software product we create must also contain unintentional errors. Some of these mistakes are genuine, while others are the result of wrong assumptions and inaccurate data. Therefore, software testing tends to identify these errors in the software product and rectify them before they are launched for public use.

Ideally, the person or team who is responsible for software testing should not be the same as those who have developed the software. This is because it is more likely for some other person to spot the flaws in the software than those who have actually developed it.

There are many reasons to why software testing is an important part of software development industry. Also, there are several major points that one should consider during the testing of any product or application.

The importance of software testing is explained in a detailed manner below

  1. Software testing is extremely necessary to find defects and errors that were made during the development phase of the software development lifecycle
    • For instance: Programmers may make a mistake while implementing the software due to lack of experience, knowledge, incorrect data, improper guidelines, human error etc.
  2. It plays an important role in marketing the product as well, since the customers tend to rely more on the software that is properly tested  
    • If the customers are not satisfied with the quality of the product delivered, then it is highly possible that they may switch to the product developed by a competitive organization
    • Sometimes, contracts also include monetary penalties with respect to deliverable deadline and quality of the product. In such cases, proper software testing can prevent such future monetary losses
  3. Software testing is extremely important to ensure the good quality of the product. This in turn increases the amount of confidence within the customers.
    • Delivering a good quality product increases the customer’s confidence in the team and their organization.
  4. Testing is necessary to provide good quality product or a software which has less defects and works consistently to get more accurate results with low maintenance cost
    • All the high quality software products have fewer defects and require a lot less effort to maintain it. Testing makes all of this possible and reduces the future expense on maintaining the product
  5. Testing is required to ensure the effective performance of the software application developed
  6. It is also very important because it detects and treats potential defects during early stages of software development cycle, which otherwise can become very expensive in the future or during the later stages of development.
    • Proper testing ensures that as many bugs and defects as possible are detected during the early stages of software development lifecycle
    • If the defects related to design or requirements are detected during the later stages of development cycle, then they can be very expensive to fix as the whole software product would require redesigning, re-implementation and retesting.
  7. Testing increases the business exposure and provides scope for growth
    • Users always tend to stay away from the software applications which have bugs and issues in their reviews. They may never even try the application if the stability ratings are not good
    • In case of new product organizations or start-ups who only deal with one product, the poor quality of the software may not attract too many customers ultimately resulting in business losses that the organization may not recover from. Testing in this case, encourages customers to adopt the software.