There are many businesses that consider real outcomes according to their expected results as a success. But, it’s not easy to reach this goal as they have to go through the consequences of human errors. No one wants to use human error as a justification for not delivering quality products to customers.
In the process of ensuring high-quality products, software testing emerges out as the best solution as it easily finds out the errors.
Software Testing is defined as a process of identifying the errors in the final products before they are launched in the market. Moreover, it also works by checking whether the real outcomes are according to the expected results or not along with finding the missing requirements, gaps, or defects. The professional software testers usually work with a combination of manual testing and automated tools.
The organizations that use the software testing process ends up in making quality strategies and delivering better products. Obviously, in the end, every organization works with the goal to satisfy the customers’ requirements by providing the best products.
Software Testing Life Cycle – What it is?
Nowadays, the software testing life cycle has now become process-oriented as it involves different phases and types of software testing. An enterprise apart from STLC also focuses on the software development life cycle. The prime purpose of SDLC in software testing is to lower down the risks of different projects by doing forward planning. With the help of this, the software can easily approach the customer expectations during production and afterwards as well.
Software testing is simply defined as a sequence of various activities performed on a product from start to finish. Being a systematic approach, it is important that it should deliver products that are free from any kind of defect. Enroll in Software Testing Course in Pune and get placed with a reputed company.
Importance of Software Testing
Many people will argue regarding the requirement of quality control at the time of developing software. The presence of software defects can hamper a brand’s reputation, which further leads to a loss of customers. In some worst cases, a bug can cause serious problems.
Here comes the role of software testing as it saves the resources, and time and delivers the best results. The procedure of software testing is beneficial in uncovering all problems before the products are introduced in the market. Some of the issues identified in the system are –
- Poor design decisions
- Security vulnerabilities
- Architectural flaws
- Scalability issues
- Invalid or incorrect functionality
Development of products leaves room for testing that improves software’s high-quality applications and reliability.
Different phases of the Software Testing Life Cycle
During the testing of product accuracy and precision, it is important to know that each and every module of application or software should be validated. Some of the complexities like unresolved bugs or unidentified regression bugs can result in hampering the production process of organizations.
Software testing itself is an elaborating process and hence includes different software testing life cycle phases.
1.Requirement analysis
It is the very first step of STLC in software testing. The quality assurance team in this understands the needs of products that have to be tested. If something is missing or not understood by the quality assurance team then they will contact the stakeholders for a better understanding and get detailed information. There are some activities performed during this phase.
- Review of the software requirements document and other documents.
- Connecting with the stakeholders to get additional information.
- Finding any kind of variations in the requirements.
- Detecting incomplete or missing requirements.
- Searching for the potential issues that might impact the testing procedures.
When this phase comes to an end, the team of software testers has a clear knowledge of software needs and is also able to find the risks. Therefore, the testing process primarily emphasizes on important areas and delivers good products.
2. Test planning
Another phase is Test Planning in which all testing plans are completely defined. Here, the testing manager calculates the cost and effort involved in testing work. Once the requirement analysis phase gets complete, this phase will automatically start.
- Searching for the testing scope and objectives.
- Creating a testing environment and needed requirements.
- Planning a test strategy by selecting various testing procedures and techniques.
- There are certain processes that place during this phase which are –
- Calculating the cost and time needed for testing.
- Finding the milestones and test deliverables.
- Approving and reviewing the test plan.
- Allocating the responsibilities and roles to the team.
- Approving and reviewing all the test plans.
The testing team works to get a detailed plan to perform all the testing activities and also understand the scope and objectives.
3. Test Case Development
The testing team in this phase focus on all the detailed test cases. Apart from this, the team also works on the required test data required for the testing process. Once the test cases are prepared, the quality assurance team reviews them. The activities which occur in this stage are –
- Planning for test data and scenarios required for test cases.
- Searching for test cases that have to be developed.
- Creating concise, easy-to-understand, and clear test cases.
- Searching for probable results for every test case.
- Validating and revising the test cases.
- Constantly updating the necessity of traceability matrix to map requirements further to test cases.
After the completion of this phase, the team will get a set of accurate test cases and offer the required coverage of the software.
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4. Test Environment Setup
One of the software testing phases, test environment setup is an essential part of the software testing life cycle. Generally, test environments end up on certain conditions on the basis of which software is tested. Throughout the process, there is no role of the testing team.
5. Test Execution
The test execution phase just starts after the completion of test case development. Here, the testing team performs the test cases depending on previously prepared test cases. Some of the activities that happen in this phase are –
- Test execution – It includes the creation of scripts and cases which are run to find out the defects.
- Defect logging – Whatever defects are found in test execution is run through a defect tracking system together with information like priority, severity, and description of issues.
- Preparation of test data – All the prepared data is loaded into the system for execution purposes.
- Test environment setup – The team set up software, hardware, and network configurations for execution purposes.
- Analysis of test result – The results are analysed for the determination of software’s performance and to find out the possible issues or defects.
It is very important to note that the test execution has to be repeated several times to search for defects.
6. Test closure
This is the final step of software testing where all kinds of testing activities are completed and further documented. The prime goal of this is to make sure that all the activities are accurately completed and software is ready to launch in the market. The end of this phase allows the testing team to get a clear idea about the reliability and quality of the software. However, it also includes documentation of all the testing processes for improving the upcoming testing procedures.
What are the types of Software Testing?
The performance of the software can be checked by various types of testing in the software. So here we are discussing them to get a better idea.
1.Unit testing
As the name suggests, unit testing is a process of testing a single unit or component of an application. Developers working on them ensure that all the units are working properly. Basically, this method is automated and meant to be performed for particular parts of code involved in the software development process. Because it is an automated process, it is useful in testing some particular function or method. It happens at the bottom level of the software development process. The prime advantages of using unit testing are –
- Useful in identifying bugs present in development processes.
- Making sure that any kind of change in code doesn’t welcome the new bugs.
- Help in making the code more modular and simpler to understand.
- Helpful in improving the reliability and quality of software.
2. Integration testing
The integration method includes the testing of various units or components included in software applications that interact with each other. Mainly, this testing process is useful in finding and resolving any kind of issues occurred when different units are merged together. It is performed after unit testing and ensures that all the units work in sync. There are some important methods by which integration testing can be performed.
- Bottom-up integration testing – This method usually starts with the lowest-level modules and then gets to the higher level.
- Incremental integration testing – In this, the modules are involved in small groups and tested as it is added.
- Top-down integration – It usually begins with the highest-level modules and is different from lower-level modules.
- Big-Bang integration testing – This includes a combination of all modules and integrating all of them.
The prime advantage of this integration testing is finding and resolving the problems which usually occurred because different units are combined and work together. On the other hand, it is also helpful in improving the stability and reliability of software.
3. Regression testing
Well, it is a way of testing that is meant to ensure that changes are made in software and do not introduce any kind of bugs. It is performed after changes are made in codes like adding new features or fixing the bugs. Regression testing is done in various ways like –
- Retesting – The method is about testing the whole application or particular functionality that got affected by the changes.
- Re-execution – The process includes running a formally executed test to guarantee that whatever changes happen didn’t break the existing functionality.
- Comparison – In this, there is a comparison of the current version of the software with the previous one to check that the changes cannot disturb the existing functionality.
There are several advantages of regression testing that the user should know about them.
- Ensuring that changes are made to software doesn’t welcome new bugs.
- Improve the reliability and stability of the software.
- Regression testing is generally an ongoing process and hence performed throughout the development process of software.
- Being an automated process, it not only saves the resources but also the time.
Whenever a new module is added, it causes changes in the program. The testing ensures that the whole thing works in sync even when the components are get added to complete the program.
4. Smoke testing
This is a test done to ensure that the software that is under testing is ready for further testing. The process is known as smoke testing because it is performed in the initial phase to check it doesn’t catch any smoke or fire in the initial switch-on.
5. Alpha testing
Alpha testing is a kind of validation testing in which testing is done before the release of products in the market. The QA team is responsible for performing the alpha testing.
6. Beta testing
Beta testing is the process of conducting tests at one or more customer sites with the help of end users. Further, the latest version is provided to a limited number of users for the testing process in a real-time environment.
7. System testing
The whole system will undergo for testing to check the functional requirement specifications or system requirement specifications. Furthermore, the software is tested in such a manner that it works accurately with various operating systems. Basically, it comes under the black box testing technique and emphasizes on input and output. It includes recovery testing, security testing, performance testing, and stress testing.
8. Stress testing
Stress testing is one of the important software testing types in which unfavourable conditions are introduced to the system and check the performance.
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9. Performance testing
Performance testing is a procedure for testing the run-time performance of different software in the environment of an integrated system. Generally, it is used for testing the effectiveness and speed of programs. Another name for performance testing is load testing. Learn the Software Testing Skills for industry experts at ProIT Academy.
10. Object-oriented testing
Testing is defined as a combination of different testing methods meant for validating and verifying object-oriented software. The testing is generally done in certain ways.
- Analysis and designing of testing
- Testing of requirements
- Integration testing
- Code testing
- System testing
- User testing
- Acceptance testing
The customers play an integral part in this testing. They check the products on the basis of tasks performed by them or stated in the requirements.
Indeed, software testing is a broad spectrum and plays an integral part in every company. Due to its enormous importance, most of companies are welcoming software testing in their process.
