Each exploratory test on our platform has a certain test type, with different specifications and limitations. This article will give you an overview of all available test types at Test IO and provide you guidance on which test types you should be focusing on based on your testing experience.

Aside from the given recommendations, you should gather experience and over time you will learn which test types suit your talents, work habits, and preferences.

You can identify the type of a test in two ways:

Check out the following table for the most important differences between our test types at a glance.

This is the standard test type, which has the fewest limitations in terms of the testing scope, bug types and bug severities, test duration, and device selection. Parameters of this test type can be modified relatively freely according to the customer's needs.

It is the go-to test type for customers who have no specific or limited requirements or scenarios in mind. New customers also make use of this test type to dive into exploratory testing.
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​Recommendation: You will often come across this test type and it is recommended for testers of any level.

As the name indicates, a focused test limits the scope in order for you to focus on specific parts of the customer's product. These parts/areas, however, will be tested deeply and extensively to ensure that there are no relevant bugs. Areas to be tested are typically main workflows, such as the checkout process in webshops or apps.

Customers will often prefer this test type over Coverage when they only want relevant workflows or newly released product features to be tested, and only want to receive functional bug reports (no visual or content bug reports).

Recommendation: Only more experienced testers are invited for tests of this type. It may be challenging to find bugs in these tests with focused scope.

Rapid tests are run when results need to be delivered quickly (within 2–4 hours) but also to identify bugs in major areas of the product that need to be fixed as soon as possible. Therefore, only critical functional bugs are in scope for these tests. This extremely limited scope is rewarded with a higher payment for each accepted bug.

Customers will often use this test type to ensure that the core functionality still works after the deployment of bug fixes and other product changes.

Recommendation: This test type is not recommended for new testers because it can be difficult to find critical bugs at times. Only after passing the Greenhorn stage, will you be invited to participate in rapid tests.

A typical Usability test will let you submit Usability Suggestions for meaningful feedback regarding the product's usability. Bug reporting is not in scope.

Recommendation: Identifying major usability issues of a product and documenting them properly is a different task than reporting bugs. Only those testers who have read our Usability Suggestions article are advised to participate in these tests. Once you are familiar with the matter, usability reporting is an interesting and doable task for any tester – whether you are a newbie or an experienced tester.

Apart from these regular usability tests, there are special usability tests with different usability tasks. You can read more about it in our Usability Testing article!