What is Live Testing? Guide To Do Live Testing In-depth

Live testing is to test software in real-world situations with real users instead of simulated data. This approach allows testers to check software quality in actual usage scenarios and real-world conditions. They do have their own risks to take into consideration, since we are interacting with real users and live systems here.

In this article, we will explore the concept of live testing in-depth, and how you can better do live testing with the right tools and approach.

What is Live Testing?

Live testing, also known as real-time testing or real device testing, is a method used in software testing where the testing process is carried out on a real device. The data used in live testing is also real, meaning that it is taken from actual users in production environments.

The opposite of live testing is simulated testing where you run the application in a virtual environment that only mimics the real environment.

Benefits Of Live Testing

Live testing allows the QA team to identify issues with the application in the same way a real user would have encountered. There are several benefits to this:

• Live testing happens on real devices, which allows testers to check device-specific aspects such as battery issues, incoming interrupts, brightness displays, etc. These are usually ignored when testing in a simulated environment.
• Live testing also lets testers carry out usability testing involving aspects such as color resolution of the screen, the looks, and feel of the application.
• Live testing is also great if you want to validate a certain assumption about user behavior. Data captured during live testing sessions can provide valuable insights not only to QA teams but also other stakeholders about areas to optimize.

Challenges Of Live Testing

When launching live testing, make sure to take into consideration the following:

• There is always some real-world variability. This makes it more difficult for the devs to replicate bugs, which in turn complicates the debugging process. 
• Live testing gives testers less control over the environment. This is necessary realism, but it also means QA teams can’t dictate how real users will interact with the system, and there can be potential edge cases happening in the process.
• The biggest issue with live testing is data privacy concerns. When testing in a real environment, QA teams must adopt certain measures to protect user privacy and ensure compliance with regional regulations.

How To Do Live Testing

To do live testing, you have 2 options:

1. Invest in physical devices providing the right testing environment that you need. This is obviously a costly approach. The effort required to continuously maintain these devices is also not small. 
2. Invest in cloud-based environments or real device farms. This approach allows QA teams and developers to execute tests across a rich array of browsers, devices, and operating systems without the hassle of setting up physical testing resources.

Here we are talking about on-demand test environments that are readily available with a decent level of realism.

Let’s see how that’s done in Katalon TestCloud.

To gain access to TestCloud, you need to download Katalon Studio.

Download Katalon Studio Now (Free)

Let’s see how we can do live testing on TestCloud with just a few clicks.

What you’ve just seen is the test execution phase. Katalon goes beyond that, supporting you throughout the entire software testing process. You have up to 3 modes of test creation:

1. No-code: turn on the Record-and-Playback feature and record everything on your screen. Katalon turns that into a fully executable test script that you can reuse across environments.
2. Low-code: leverage the rich library of keywords Katalon offers and craft a keyword-driven test case by just choosing the keywords for the action you want to automate.
3. Full-code: want to customize even further? Turn on the scripting IDE and code away! Get the best of both worlds with Katalon.

Start Live Testing With Katalon Today