Having a bug-free application is important if you want to employ digital transformation for your business. Bug-free software minimizes user frustration, as well as drives higher productivity and higher customer satisfaction. 

Bugs, however, are a common occurrence in the software of all types, from small applications to large systems. If you don’t resolve them early, they will hurt your reputation or, even worse, cause detrimental errors that disrupt your business. This begs the question: “Why do bugs occur in the first place?” which leads to another important question: “How can you prevent bugs?”. 

In this article, we’ll share with you common reasons why bugs happen in software development and how you can minimize them. Let’s dive into the details!

What Is a Bug?

A bug is an error or a defect in an application that causes the program to work incorrectly or differently from what was designed. This term was started using in technology to describe defects around the early 19th century when the inventor Thomas Edison described malfunctions in his innovations as bugs. Grace Hopper, however, is believed to be the first person to use this term in computer science when an actual bug, a trapped month, caused errors in his computer program. 

Why Do Bugs Occur in Software?

Bugs happen for a lot of reasons, and knowing which will allow you to prevent them. Some of the most common reasons are:

Miscommunication

Bugs can result from the failure to communicate effectively between the business team and the software development team. If the business team is not able to clearly explain customer requirements, the software developers will have trouble delivering them, or they may build incorrect features, and the final product will turn out to be different from what was intended. 

To achieve the desired result, all teams involved in a project must thoroughly understand the requirements and get everyone from the business team to the delivery team on the same page at the beginning. When developers understand precisely what they need to build, they will be able to get it right early, and the software will be less likely to get bugs. All teams should be in constant communication during the project to ensure any bug that occurs will get resolved as soon as possible. 

Inexperienced Developers

Another reason that introduces bugs to software is inexperienced developers who lack the skills and expertise needed to build features correctly. This is why it’s essential to develop and employ a rigorous vetting process when it comes to hiring both in-house and outsourced teams. Apart from examining potential candidates’ technical skills and soft skills with well-designed tests, you should also ask them about past projects they’ve done and clients they’ve worked with. This will allow you to know not only whether the candidates have the expertise you need but also where they’ve handled projects similar to yours.

Inadequate Timelines

The business world is moving at breakneck speed, so everyone wants to be the first to bring to market the next innovation. Quality software, however, takes time (a lot of it, in fact) to develop. If you attempt to rush your software development process, the risk of introducing bugs and errors will be much higher, which will later cause a detrimental impact on user experience and your reputation. 

It’s true that the more experienced your development team is, the faster you can get to the product launch phase, but even the best people can’t do the impossible. An experienced team will tell you if your deadline is achievable or unrealistic and give you an estimate of the shortest possible amount of time it will take to complete your product, given a certain level of guaranteed quality. What you should do is listen to their advice and not force them to rush the project. A little bit of patience will pay off in fewer bugs and higher user satisfaction in the future. 

Changing Requirements

No matter how carefully you’ve planned your project, necessary changes down the road are sometimes unavoidable. Although all requirements don’t necessarily have to be carved in stone, try to clearly define the core, most important requirements right off the bat and avoid changing them. These core features, if changed, can cause a ripple effect on other features in the project, which will lead to chaos and confusion. Bugs can easily occur in these circumstances as developers lose their focus. 

In case you definitely need to make a change, you should seek advice from the development team on how the change will affect the entire project so you can evaluate whether it’s worth it to apply the change. If you don’t have a good understanding of software development, it can be hard to understand how a minor modification can derail a project.

Faulty Tools

Using tools to manage software projects is a great way to organize workflows and speed up development. However, you need to make sure that any tool that you use, whether they are libraries, frameworks, and so on, is helping the project, not harming it. Your tools should also be consistent throughout the project because switching tools can cause bugs resulting from lost information.

Insufficient or Lack of QA Testing

Quality assurance testing is the best way to test the performance, usability, and functionality of a software product and discover bugs prior to launching. If you skip the software testing phase or don’t give it the attention it deserves, your software will likely be doomed to fail.

QA specialists often work closely with developers, especially in Agile software development models to test finished features. Their role is to perform a variety of strict tests to make sure that the application functions as designed and to find any bugs that can cause the software to malfunction. 

Lack of Documentation

It’s a good software development practice to document code during software development. Without proper documentation, team members will have difficulty collaborating with one another because it’s difficult to read and understand the code that other people have written. When developers struggle to understand existing code, bugs can easily happen when they need to develop something on it. Writing clear and easy-to-follow code descriptions is one of the best ways to avoid bugs in software.

Final words

It’s probably impossible to guarantee that a software product is bug-free, but understanding what causes them and following these practices will help you minimize the number of bugs occurring in your project. When you make efforts to ensure the highest quality for your application, you will get back a great piece of software that simplifies tasks and impresses users.

If your company doesn’t have the expertise to execute your software development project in-house, it’s best to find a service provider to help you. 

CMC Global is among the top three IT outsourcing services providers in Vietnam. We operate a large certified team of developers, providing a wide variety of stacks to help you build your application in the most cost-effective way and in the least amount of time. 

For further information, fill out the form below, and our technical team will get in touch shortly to advise!