1. Home
  2. Testing Services
  3. Applause Reviews
  4. User Review of Applause
Applauding Applause
September 22, 2015

Applauding Applause

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Functional Testing

Overall Satisfaction with Applause

We used Applause to help with our functional testing on a variety of web applications we were developing and updating. We had a large initiative which resulted in many deliverables all arriving at nearly the same time and each with very short turnaround periods. We looked at using Applause to supplement our internal testing efforts by having them provide the initial wide spread high level review of the applications to flush out the most significant/obvious issues. This allowed our internal QA team more flexibility for the in-depth review for which more detailed product/business knowledge was required.
  • They are able to spin up skilled QA resources quickly and effectively.
  • They provide an elegant, intuitive interface to interact with testers and the defect reports.
  • The main disconnect we encountered had to do with our development process and types of applications. The provided testers were great for the initial functional pass and for regression validation. But for in-depth analysis of features in subsequent deliverables, we passed a point of diminishing returns due to general stability and lack of time for the testers to discover the underlying nuances and complexities of the applications.
  • Even with lengthier cycles, testers were not easily motivated to dig deeply beyond the high level stability to investigate the depths of the programs. This could be helped on our company's part by creating more detailed requirements and test cases but the "out of the box" model from Applause doesn't seem to have good "in-depth" review beyond the top level exploratory.
  • Positive
  • - we were able to provide good QA on an increased number of deliverables in a shorter period of time.
  • - great interaction with the Applause team, test leads and others
  • - high quality candidates added to our team
  • Negative
  • - the contract model (based on number of projects for specified monthly periods) was a little tricky for our development life cycles and left us at times wanting to engage test cycles but unable to do so while simultaneously having a project sitting idle for weeks after test cycles completed. Our business model was not a great fit for the contract model.
I am very intrigued by their mobile application testing model. This seems to be a great way to gather better feedback from the variety of hardware and software options. I also hear good things about their teams that write automation and/or manual test cases.

Key things for a company to consider as you engage Applause would be to make sure you have clear direction and understanding of what you hope to accomplish. You can just set the Applause team loose at the product and you'll get some defect reports. But you'll have much better results if you can provide good information and instructions to the team.

You should also plan on having a person dedicate some time (exact amount will vary by project) to the Applause project in terms of answering questions at the start of and during the test cycle as well as time to review, rate and comment on the submitted tickets at the end of the project.