Crowdsource Definition: What is Crowdsource? What is Crowd Test Designed for?

Crowdsourced testing represents a method in software evaluation wherein a considerable multitude of individuals, frequently hailing from various geographical locations, diverse backgrounds, and varied proficiency levels, participate in testing a software product or application.

This article helps to understand the crowdsource definition in terms of software development. The fundamental concept driving crowdsourced testing revolves around harnessing the broad spectrum and expansiveness of the collective group to uncover defects, usability challenges, and input that could elude detection through conventional testing approaches.

How Is the Crowdsource Testing Performed?

Crowdsourcing software testing can be done in various ways, such as:

• Crowdsourcing platforms: These digital platforms serve as intermediaries, linking software developers or evaluators with a community of testers capable of undertaking diverse testing assignments, ranging from functional and usability testing to security and localization testing. Compensation for testers typically correlates with the quantity and quality of identified bugs or completed tasks. Instances of such crowdsourcing platforms include Testlio, uTest, Testbirds, and similar platforms.


• Security Vulnerability Rewards: These initiatives provide incentives, often in the form of monetary compensation, to individuals who successfully identify and report security weaknesses in a software product or system. The magnitude of rewards is contingent upon the seriousness and repercussions of the discovered vulnerability. Instances of platforms facilitating such security vulnerability reward programs include HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Synack, and similar platforms.


• Crowdsourced Challenges: These events entail competitions that task a diverse group with resolving a particular issue or devising a solution for a software product or application. Contestants have the option to submit their proposed solutions and gain insights from both the organizers and fellow participants. Outstanding solutions are typically acknowledged with prizes, acclaim, or potential opportunities. Illustrations of platforms hosting crowdsourced challenges include Topcoder, Innocentive, Kaggle, and similar.

Types of Crowdsourced Websites

There are many kinds of crowd testing sites. It depends on the goal, scope, and type of the company-provider. Some of the common crowdsourced testing companies are:

• Crowd-generated Content Platforms: These online platforms empower the collective to generate, modify, or organize content spanning articles, videos, images, podcasts, and more. The produced content finds application across diverse spheres, encompassing entertainment, education, information dissemination, marketing, and beyond. Instances of platforms facilitating crowd-generated content include Wikipedia, YouTube, Medium, and similar websites.


• Collective Data Acquisition: These companies empower individuals to gather, categorize, or provide annotations for data, spanning text, images, audio, video, and more. The compiled data serves multifaceted objectives, including applications in machine learning, artificial intelligence, research endeavors, analytical pursuits, and beyond. Illustrations of platforms facilitating collective data acquisition include Amazon Mechanical Turk, Figure Eight, Zooniverse, and similar platforms.


• Creative Concept Formation: These platforms enable the collective to formulate, disseminate, or endorse concepts, including novel products, features, services, solutions, and more. The concepts hold applicability across diverse objectives, such as fostering innovation, enhancing existing frameworks, and addressing challenges. Instances of websites facilitating creative concept formation include Quirky, Ideascale, OpenIDEO, and so on.


• Financial Support Platforms: These online platforms provide opportunities for the community to finance or endorse initiatives, purposes, or individuals, ranging from emerging businesses and philanthropic organizations to creative talents, and more. The financial backing can take diverse forms, including contributions, incentives, ownership shares, loans, and so forth. Instances of platforms facilitating financial support include Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and GoFundMe.

Who Uses the Crowdsourced Software Testing?

Crowd testing can be used by anyone who needs to test a software product or application, such as:

• Developers of Software: Employing the method of collaborative testing by the crowd, software developers can examine their code, identify glitches, enhance overall quality, and receive input from actual users. Additionally, they have the opportunity to use collaborative software testing to assess their products on a variety of devices, platforms, browsers, languages, and more.


• Testers of Software: Enhance their testing methods by incorporating crowdsourced testing, tapping into a diverse pool of testers. This approach reduces both testing costs and time. Additionally, testers can learn new skills, tools, and techniques from the crowd.


• Soft Technology firms: Have the option to employ collaborative software testing as a pre-launch strategy to evaluate their products, guarantee customer contentment, and secure a competitive advantage. Additionally, they can leverage crowdsourced software testing to outsource their testing requirements, including the assessment of new features, updates, or product versions.

Why Do You Need Crowdsource Testing?

This may become evident from the Crowdsource definition, that it provides many benefits, such as:

• Diversification: Crowd sourced testing taps into a varied tester pool, bringing diverse perspectives and experiences to uncover bugs, usability issues, and feedback often overlooked by traditional methods.


• Scalability: Easily adaptable to project needs, crowdsource testing can scale up or down based on factors like project size, complexity, or urgency. This flexibility aids in meeting deadlines, managing workloads, and adapting to changing testing requirements.


• Cost-effectiveness: By compensating testers based on results rather than hours worked, crowdsource testing reduces overall testing costs. This cost-effective approach eliminates the need for a dedicated testing team, along with associated expenses like hiring, training, and maintaining testing infrastructure.


• Quality: Crowdsourcing testing contributes to software quality by identifying and reporting bugs, usability issues, and valuable feedback. This, in turn, enhances customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention, bolstering the software company’s reputation and revenue.

App Crowdsource Definition: What is App Crowdsourcing?

A crowdsourced app is a form of crowd sourcing that involves using the crowd to create, test, or improve mobile applications. This process can be performed in various ways, including:

• Development of crowdsourced apps: This involves engaging the collective in the creation stages of an app, encompassing activities like design, coding, or prototyping. The community can actively participate in either building an app from the ground up or contributing to ongoing app projects. Platforms facilitating app development include Appy Pie, Thunkable, App Inventor, and others.


• App Evaluation: In this scenario, the community actively participates in assessing the app, identifying bugs, evaluating usability, and providing constructive feedback. This engagement can occur either before or after the app’s market release. Platforms facilitating app evaluation include TestFairy, TestFlight, and Beta Family.


• Enhancing Apps: In this context, the collective actively contributes to refining the app, offering suggestions for new features, functionalities, or improvements. Participants can express their ideas, opinions, or votes to influence app enhancements, or they can directly implement their proposed solutions. Platforms facilitating app enhancement include UserVoice, Feature Upvote, GitHub, and similar services.

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Crowdsourcing?

The crowdsource definition explains it as a technique for acquiring information, concepts, or resolutions from an extensive and varied assembly of individuals, typically facilitated through digital platforms.

The practice of collaborative sourcing brings forth various merits and drawbacks, contingent upon the circumstances, objectives, and nature of the collaborative sourcing initiative. Below, we delve into several typical pros and cons associated with collaborative sourcing.

Advantages of Crowdsourcing:

• Variety: Engaging in crowdsourcing offers access to an extensive and varied group of individuals, each contributing diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and inclinations to the endeavor. This diversity facilitates the discovery of additional insights, creativity, and feedback that might elude conventional methods.


• Adaptability: Crowdsourcing exhibits the capacity to adjust in scale, either expanding or contracting based on the project’s requirements, encompassing factors like size, intricacy, or immediacy. This adaptability aids in meeting project deadlines, managing workloads, and addressing evolving project specifications.


• Cost-efficiency: Embracing crowdsourcing can result in cost savings for the project, as contributors are typically compensated based on their delivered outcomes rather than hours worked. This approach can lead to reduced expenses related to hiring, training, or maintaining a dedicated team. It also helps in curtailing costs associated with procuring, leasing, or maintaining equipment and infrastructure.

Disadvantages of Crowdsourcing:

• Assurance of Excellence: Maintaining the quality and uniformity of work in crowdsourcing presents a challenge due to varying levels of skills, knowledge, or motivation among participants. This diversity may result in errors, inaccuracies, or fraudulent activities. Consequently, implementing a quality control mechanism, such as verification, validation, or rating, becomes essential to scrutinize and assess the work contributed by participants.


• Effective Communication: Managing communication in crowdsourcing proves challenging due to the diverse languages, cultures, and preferences of participants. This diversity may lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, or communication delays. Therefore, the implementation of a communication platform, such as chat, email, or forum, is crucial to facilitate and streamline communication with participants.


• Security Concerns: Ensuring the security and privacy of data in crowdsourcing is challenging due to diverse participant intentions, ethics, and loyalties, raising the risk of leaks or breaches. To address this, crowdsourcing projects require a robust security policy encompassing encryption, authentication, and non-disclosure agreements to safeguard and monitor project data, information, or intellectual property.

Most Popular Crowdsourced Testing Websites In 2023

Here is a comparison table of some of the most popular crowdsourcing testing websites in 2023:

How to Choose the Best Crowdsourced Testing Website For Your Project?

Determining the ideal crowd sourced testing platform for your project lacks a one-size-fits-all solution. Various testing websites offer distinct features, services, and pricing models. Nevertheless, several aspects merit consideration when selecting the most suitable crowdsourced testing website for your specific project.

• The nature of testing required, encompassing aspects like functional, usability, localization, performance, and security, among others.


• The scale and intricacy of your testing initiative, including factors such as the volume of test cases, scenarios, and testing environments.


• The financial and temporal aspects of your testing endeavor, comprising the allocated budget, testing cycle duration, and testing iteration frequency.


• The credibility and dependability of the chosen crowdsourced websites, considering factors like reputation, reviews, ratings, clientele, and customer services.


• The attributes and advantages offered by the crowdsourced platform, such as the extent and diversity of the tester pool, coverage of real devices and browsers, integration with popular tools, payment model, and reporting format.


• The potential challenges and limitations of the crowd sourced testing platform, taking into account aspects like the quality control mechanism, communication platform, and security policy.

Utilizing these criteria, you have the opportunity to assess and compare various crowdsourced testing companies. By doing so, you can identify the company that aligns most effectively with your testing requirements, financial considerations, and expectations. It’s also advisable to seek a complimentary trial or demonstration from the crowdsourced testing platform to gain firsthand exposure to their services and performance.

Conclusion

Crowdsourced testing is a form of software testing that leverages the power of the crowd to find and report bugs, usability issues, and feedback for a software product or application. Now you understand the crowdsource definition very clearly and realize that crowd testing offers many benefits, such as diversity, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and quality. However, it has some disadvantages, such as quality control, communication, and security. Therefore, it is important to choose crowdsourced websites that suit your needs, budget, and expectations.