Crowdsourced software testing company Applause today announced the launch of its new enterprise testing research division Applause Labs and its first product, an enterprise-ready app benchmarking tool called Applause Quality Score.

Applause Labs will be led by industry veteran Jonathan Zaleski, who will oversee the division’s development of new testing standards and tools for the information technology industry. With this new additional resource, Applause expects to bring products to market faster.

Applause is a leader in crowdtesting, a method of testing that involves gathering numerous people together to test a product simultaneously. They use software that collates the data from those tests into a format that can be analyzed. It differs from traditional testing methods in that the core of testing is done by a diverse set of testers hired as a “crowd” instead of hired consultants or professionals.

According to a report published by Technavio in 2018, the software testing market is estimated to reach almost $68 billion in revenue by 2022. This trend is partially led by automated testing – which uses software and hardware to provide automatic tests – and also driven by an uptick in crowdsourced testing.

“Crowdsourced testing provides an additional opportunity to developers to test applications in real world conditions without the need for full quality assurance,” a senior research analyst at Technavio wrote in the report. “Businesses also do not have to invest in the acquisition of tools for testing projects. They can get a complete test coverage and access to many testers from different parts of the world without making any financial investments.”

For brands looking to measure and improve the quality of releases more consistently over time, the Applause Quality Score is the first product of Applause Labs and will provide a quality benchmark for enterprise apps.

A resulting score, a calculated value ranging from 0 to 100, enables clients to get a better understanding of the quality of their build over time. That allows developers to get a gauge on how the quality has changed from build to build and helps them decide when a build is ready for release.

“For over a decade, Applause has worked with the world’s top brands to address digital quality issues,” said Zaleski. “With years of expertise and historical data on what makes a quality app or product, we are uniquely positioned to create a standard for what good looks like.”

To develop this score, the Applause Quality Score engine uses a vast pool of experience and historical data drawn from previous crowdsourced testing done by Applause. It also allows clients to set their own testing scope and variables that affect the final score, allowing enough customization to fit almost any project.

In addition, clients will have access to a dashboard designed to allow users to segment by areas that are important. Dashboard information is real-time and interactive that provides graphs and charts displaying factors such as test coverage, bug accumulation and will even highlight what modules or code segments with the highest frequency of bugs.

“The Applause Quality Score is just the beginning for Applause Labs,” said Zaleski. “We are laser-focused on the exploration and delivery of cutting-edge concepts in testing, including some entirely new product offerings.”

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