BuzzFeed: Finding Bugs at Buzz-Speed

 BuzzFeed is a leading multi-channel digital media company that delivers news and entertainment pieces to a global audience. Its vast network includes BuzzFeed Originals, BuzzFeed Media Brands, BuzzFeed Studios, BuzzFeed News, and BuzzFeed Commerce, all of which create authentic content that engages audiences and fosters social impact. 

I spoke with Jeremy Back, Staff QA Engineer at BuzzFeed about his team's approach to testing for functional and visual issues on the BuzzFeed and Tasty apps.

BuzzFeed vetted five separate companies, going through a variety of demos and gauging various services to understand what kind of value was offered.

They based their interest in these companies on various factors:

• Quality of the test results
• Speed to get test coverage, the number of unique testers per test cycle
• Type of testing they were capable of
• Type of bugs received
• Ease of communications

So, what put test IO on top?

Hint: “[It] enabled [Jeremy's team] to do additional forms of testing, carrying out further efforts that [they] didn’t have time to focus on prior.”

Jeremy had initial concerns with crowdtesting, as sometimes the quality of findings is sacrificed for the quantity. Often, the goal of testers quickly becomes to create as many tickets as possible as opposed to fewer high quality ones. 

BuzzFeed started with a limited number of tests, and after seeing a clear and present value, opted for test IO’s unlimited testing support.

Today, Jeremy says, “Bugs are being found that, while we could find them, would take us 48-72 hours to find them in our regressions suite, where test IO is finding them in less than 24 hours.”

Jeremy shared that on-demand device coverage has been one of the greatest benefits of working with test IO: being able to go into the platform and select the exact device they’re having trouble with. 

It can be easy to say “let’s just automate everything and see what happens,” but when you’re dealing with content-heavy, evolving applications, you must ensure your user flows are solid and that test coverage keeps up with the development roadmap. 

To ensure the above is taken care of, read the entire case study here.

Interested in learning more about how different companies work with test IO to leverage crowdtesting? Visit the Customers page for more case studies and stories.