Software testing is the process of ensuring the operational accuracy, functional coherence, logical validity and contextual compliance of a software product from various aspects of technical and conceptual applications. In a software testing program, a solution is tested under a controlled environment using different testing techniques and tools to detect, assess, and fix various factors of quality assurance like usability, security, localization, performance, compatibility, and installation.
Software Testing Phases
Testers participate in the software development process and start working right from the development phase. Like other software development processes, testing has a lifecycle. Software Testing Lifecycle is a process of executing the testing process systematically. The process can have different phases, depending on the organization's goals and software development strategy. These phases include the requirement, planning, implementation, conclusion, execution, closure, and more. Let’s have a look at the functioning of these phases in brief:
Requirement Phase
The requirement phase involves brainstorming and project analyzing. The tester is supposed to interact with the team to discover whether the requirements could be tested or not. If they are not testable, the tester should discuss it with the authorities so that the right adjustments are made to the plan.
Planning Phase
During this phase, developers collect tools and resources to accomplish the project testing process smoothly.
Analysis Phase
The analytic phase describes the app's parts and functions that need to be tested. The tester identifies depth, risk, and complexity of testing during this phase.
Design Phase
The design phase describes 'HOW' the testing should be carried out. Gathering the test data, creating the test environment, and developing test coverage metrics are the aspects covered under the design phase.
Implementation Phase
During the implementation phase, the team has to come up with the comprehensive test cases. The tester should study the test cases before finalizing them.
Execution Phase
The major job of a tester begins here. During this phase, the tester has to bring the planning, resources, tools, and techniques together to execute the process. Run the test cases, record the bugs and issues, and monitor your testing progress.
Conclusion Phase
As the name implies, this is the final phase that focuses on the bugs reporting and exit criteria. Depending on the company you are working with, you can choose to send daily reports or send weekly updates to the authorities. Remember to include the technical terms in your testing report, especially if it is sent to the project manager.
Closure Phase
Check if you have executed all the planned test cases. The test process completes once all the test cases are executed and a final report is delivered to the manager.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is software testing?
What are different kinds of software testing?
Here are the different kinds of software testing methods, techniques, and practices used by software testing services companies in a stand-alone practice or in different combinations to assure the quality of software solution.
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White Box Testing
White Box Testing is referred to as the testing of the internal structure of the software solution along with the coding and design. In this type of software testing, the code is easily visible to the tester. When you hire services from a reliable custom software development company, it focuses basically on the verification of the flow of inputs & outputs through the application, increasing the overall design and usability, and improving the security parameters.
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Black Box Testing
As per the leading performance testing services and experts, Black Box testing is defined as the process of software testing that tests the AUT (Application Under Test) and its functionalities. Black Box testing pays no attention to the internal code structure of the software system along with paying no heed to the in-depth knowledge paths or implementation details of the given software solution. Black Box testing is known to be entirely focused on the specific software requirements along with its specifications.
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Unit testing
When you make use of the unit testing services from the reliable custom software development company, you should know about the meaning of this testing mechanism as well. It is referred to as a type of software testing solution wherein individual components of the software get tested. The purpose of unit testing is to validate individual unit of every software system as per its design. A unit is referred to as the smallest testable component of any software.
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System Testing
It is yet another one of the most popular web apps testing services out there. It is referred to as a level of advanced software testing in which a complete and integrated software system gets tested. The main purpose of the test is to analyze the compliance of the system with the specific requirements. The main process of system testing refers to an integrated system for verifying that it meets specific requirements.
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User Acceptance Testing
UAT –standing for User Acceptance Testing, is a kind of software testing that is performed by the client or end user before a software application is moved to the production environment. User Acceptance Testing is another type of leading software testing and QA service that is carried out during the final phase of testing after integration, functional, and even system testing is carried out. The main purpose of UAT is aimed at validating the end-to-end business flow.
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End-to-end testing
It is a leading testing mechanism that is used for testing whether or not the flow of the application is behaving as per the norms –right from the start to finish. The main purpose of carrying out end-to-end testing is identifying the system dependencies while ensuring that the overall data integrity is maintained between multiple systems and components. In a given end-to-end testing mechanism, the entire application gets tested for major functionalities like ensuring communication with other interfaces, systems, network, databases, and other applications.
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Functional Testing
As per the experts from a leading custom software development company, functional testing is referred to as a type of software testing in which the particular system gets tested against the functional specifications or requirements. Specific features or functions are tested by providing the input while examining the output. Functional testing is known to ensure that the specific requirements of the software application are satisfied properly by the same.
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Compatibility Testing
Compatibility testing is referred to as a type of software application testing for checking whether or not the software is capable of running on multiple hardware, applications, operating systems, mobile devices, or network environments. There are several types of software compatibility testing mechanisms for different components including hardware, operating systems, browsers, devices, and networks. There are two primary types of compatibility testing including backward testing and forward testing. Some of the important tools for compatibility testing are Virtual Desktops and BrowserStack.
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Regression Testing
It is another famous mechanism for software testing that is used for confirming that a recent code or program change will not affect the major existing features of the application. Regression testing is regarded as a partial or full selection of test cases that have already been executed. These test cases are re-executed towards ensuring the fact that overall functionalities are working fine. Regression testing is performed towards ensuring that new code modifications should not have any side effect on the existing functionalities.
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Sanity Testing
Regarded as the subset of regression testing, Sanity testing is carried out for ensuring that the code modifications are working properly. Sanity testing is regarded as a restriction for checking whether or not testing for the given application can proceed. The primary focus of sanity testing during the process is aimed at validating the overall functionality of the application. As such, it is not any type of detailed testing. The major functionality of this type of testing is to analyze that the proposed modifications are working as per the expected results.
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Usability Testing
Usability testing is a mechanism to observe how to use a particular tool for testing a software application with the real users. This type of testing is used for evaluating the fact that how easy a particular software application is on a functional basis. The test is known to take place with the real users for measuring how intuitive or usable the given software solution is.
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Mutation Testing
Mutation testing is defined as a type of specialized software testing solutions wherein the users are known to mutate or change specific statements in the application’s source code. Mutation testing is known to check whether or not the test cases are able to detect the errors. It is a specific variant of white box testing –typically utilized for unit testing. The modifications in a typical mutant program are maintained extremely small. Therefore, there is no change in the overall objective of the program.
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Performance Testing
As per the definition of professional performance testing services, this type of testing is a specialized software testing towards ensuring that software applications are performing well even under unexpected workload. The primary focus of performance testing solutions are aimed at checking the stability, scalability, and speed of the given software program. The main aim of performance testing is not to come across the bugs, but also to eliminate the major performance bottlenecks.
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Alpha testing
It is defined as a specific type of process for carrying out software testing that is performed for identifying the bugs before the experts aim at releasing the product to the public or even real users. Alpha testing is known to be a type of acceptance testing. This testing goes by the name as “Alpha testing” because it is done during the early stages, before Beta testing, and towards the end of the process of software development.
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Beta Testing
Beta testing is a type of acceptance testing. It is used for adding value to the given software product as the user helps in validating the software product for ensuring usability, functionality, compatibility, and reliability. In this type of testing, the input is provided by the users and this helps in boosting the overall quality of product while leading to a path of success. Beta testing, when carried out effectively, can help in making the process of decision-making a seamless process!
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Failover Testing
It is a famous testing technique that is capable of validating the ability of the system to allocate additional resources while moving the operations to relevant back-up systems in case of a server failure because of one or more reasons. This helps in determining whether or not a system is able to handle additional resources like the allocation of additional servers or CPUs during critical failures. Some of the instances of failover testing are financial application, banking application, trading platforms, and telecom application. While choosing failover testing, you need to consider the overall cost of ensuring the efficiency of software testing.
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Interface Testing
It is defined as a type of software application testing that helps in verifying whether or not the communication established between two diverse software ecosystems is carried out effectively. The interface in this type of testing could be anything –right from a computer system to a web service, API, and so more. Subsequent testing of these applications or interfaces is called as interface testing. An interface is defined as a software application featuring a series of commands or messages.
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Security Testing
It is a specialized type of software application testing that aim at uncovering the existing vulnerabilities of the given system. At the same time, this type of testing mechanism also helps in determining that the available resources & data of the given system remain protected from the possible risks. It also helps in ensuring that the given software application system remains free from any possible threat or risk –causing some major loss.
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Comparison Testing
This type of testing is known to comprise of the process of testing various contents of files along with databases against the available sets of actual results. In this type of testing, comparison testing tools tend to feature specialized functions that enable specific sections of the databases or files to be masked out or filtered. As such, this allows the testing expert to filter out the timestamp or date on the screen as it always turns out different from the expected results.
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Smoke Testing
Also going by the name as “build verification testing,” smoke testing is a specialized type of software application testing comprising of non-exhaustive sets of software tests that are aimed at ensuring that vital functions work effectively. The result of the given testing mechanism helps in deciding if the given software application is stable enough or not for proceeding with further steps of testing. Smoke testing is known to cover most of the major functions of the software application.
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Install/uninstall Testing
This type of testing is carried out towards verifying whether or not the given software application has been installed by including all the necessary components. The testing mechanism is also carried out for ensuring whether or not the application will be working as desired. This serves highly important as the installation of the software application will tend to be the first-user interaction with the users. Some of the types of installations carried out are network installation, silent installation, automated installation, and so more.
What is the Difference Between Automation and Manual Testing?
Both forms of testing, Automated and Manual, come with their set of traits and have different characteristics to offer.
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Manual Testing
Manual testing refers to the app testing executed manually by a professional QA analyst. The tester has to check the app for bugs. As the name suggests, the tester does not use third-party testing tools and test cases executing programs. They check all the features and functionalities of the app by executing the test cases manually.
Manual testing is a conventional approach to testing the software for bugs. This allows the QA professional to apply the human sense of judgment across the process. The process must be carried out by an experienced tester, who can also generate accurate reports.
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Automation Testing
Automation testing involves the use of automated software that helps the tester execute test cases quickly and efficiently. The tester has to type codes or prepare test scripts to run automation testing.
Automation testing saves the developers and testers time by generating a reliable and authentic report in the shortest time possible avoiding human errors. Though most part of the testing is performed by the software, the initial scripts must be prepared by the tester.
What are testing tools?
The tools that help QA professionals to detect solutions with bugs and functional gaps and deviations and help you optimize their performance. Software testing tools help testing engineers drive QA programs by establishing and configuring the right plan, define requirements, execute tests, detect digression, identify bugs, log defects, find solutions, fix bugs and gaps, and optimize solutions.
What is the advantage of hiring dedicated software testing outsourcing company?
With a dedicated testing services unit, you get specialized services that are rendered by pro-domain QA experts. You get the benefits of tech-compliant testing processes that follow rigorous quality standards. And most importantly you have professionally built and run test cases and advanced techniques to get you flawless outcomes. An outsourcing company working on software testing services can offer you reliable and quality solutions saving you the cost of in-house hiring and staffing. Besides, offering you an inclusive service infrastructure and resource backup to deliver assured QA value.
What are the major aspects to consider while selecting the testing services provider?
Check into the factors of software testing expertise the company has, in the first place. Look into their portfolio and use cases and the range of testing situations and requirements they have served over time. See how adaptable they are with offering services in case there are any technology deviations and practicing shifts along the duration of the testing program. Also, look into the communication and reporting aspect and get the budget into consideration. All these put together should get you to select the right software testing services company for your testing and QA services needs.