A survey on the practices of software testing: a look into Brazilian companies

Abstract

[Context:] Software testing is essential for all software development, and techniques and criteria have been proposed to ensure its quality in different application domains. [Objective:] This survey aims at the identification of software testing practices in Brazilian industries, towards an overview of the latest testing techniques, selection processes, challenges faced, tools and metrics used by testers. [Methodology:] Survey questions were carefully designed for providing relevant information to both industry and academy and evaluated by testers for improving the quality of the survey. [Results and Conclusions:] Our study provides insights into the current software testing practices in Brazilian software companies. The results show testers select a testing technique according to the project scope under development; however, most companies have shown a lack of importance and priority regarding to the testing activity. Some challenges raised will foster new research topics, outlined by the needs faced by testers in practice.