What is Software Testing?

Software testing is verifying and validating a software application to confirm whether it fulfills the business requirements and is bug-free.

Software testing is not only used for finding bugs but also helps improve the software’s accuracy, efficiency, and usability. This blog post will try to understand software testing in detail.

What is a Software?

We know that hardware represents the physical aspects of a computer in the same manner. Software is a generic term for programs or instructions that tell computer hardware how to operate.

Computer software can be divided into two categories:

• Applications are the specific programs people use on their computers. Examples include web browsers, word processors, games, and music players.
• Systems software includes basic tools, such as compilers, that allow applications to run.

What is Software Testing?

Software Testing evaluates software products to find defects, deficiencies, or errors. Testing aims to uncover any problems with the product before it begins operation (i.e. after being delivered to its end users).

This ensures that all the customers receive quality products free from faults and errors. That’s why software testing is an essential part of quality assurance.

Software Testing is performed to detect software failures so that defects may be identified and corrected. Software Testing is not limited to looking for bugs only; it includes all activities to evaluate an application for compliance with its design. The main purpose of software testing is to identify bugs in the application and provide a mechanism for removal or correction.

Definition of Software Testing

As per the ANSI/IEEE 1059 standard definition, Software Testing Means

Why do we need Software Testing?

While developing software, the developers mainly focus on bug-free software. However, this is not always true because software is a complex discipline involving the knowledge and skills of many different disciplines.

For example, if you want your software to be perfect, you need good coders (software developers), but in addition, you also need testers who will make sure that the code works as it should work – bug-free.

There are other factors are also there for choosing software testing, some of them are:

• Cost-Effective: Testing any software application on time can save time and money. Because if you don’t test the application at an early stage and later if you find many bugs. Then, it will cost more and impact the delivery of your product because it will require more time to fix those bugs, which may impact other application modules.
• Security: It is one of the most sensitive parts of testing any software application. Because every user tries to use a trusted application on which they can rely. So, by software testing, we can find the risks and problems in that application.
• Product Quality: Whatever the Software application we are developing, it should work as planned. We need to follow the product requirements because we can get the required results by observing them.
• Customer Satisfaction: Any organization or product owner’s main goal is to give their customer the most satisfying application. So, to achieve this, the software needs to be tested so that we can bring the best user experience to the consumers.

Software Testing Principles

Software testing principles help the test teams to get the most out of their time and effort during the process. By applying fundamental principles, tests can be performed more efficiently and effectively.

The following list represents a set of fundamental principles that should help the test teams to get better results, reduce risk, and ultimately gain confidence in their testing activities. Adopting these philosophies will take the test team to the next level.

• Software testing can help detect bugs: Once the Application is developed, it is recommended to test the application because there are chances of getting defects that the developers may not identify. So, the testers created the Test cases for the application with the various scenarios and tried to find as many defects in the application as possible.
• Early testing: The earlier you start the testing for an application or project, you will find the defects in the earlier stages only by which you can fix those effects with less effort.
• Error-free or Bug-free software is a myth: Just testing an application by the testers, and if they don’t find any defects in the application, it does not imply that your software is ready for shipping.

We have written a detailed post about the testing principles in software testing, and you can follow the link for that article.

Software Testing Types OR Types of Testing

Various types of testing are present to verify whether your product is working as expected. but all those tests are categorized into main types:

Manual Testing

The first testing stage is manual testing, and the tester who does the manual testing is called a “Manual Tester”. All professional testers do some form of manual testing, even if they use automated tools for other tests.

Manual testing is a manual process that does not use any automatic tools, and by using manual testing, we validate the business objective mentioned for the respective product.

Developers and testers do manual testing, but only software testers do this testing because they know their product better than others.

Automation Testing

We use a tool or script that reduces manual test efforts in the automation software testing process. In automation testing, the developer has limited or no involvement during the execution of this activity.

Automation testing became popular because it was observed that manual software test engineers were not able to achieve maximum productivity due to the following reasons:-

• Manual testing consumes more time with repetitive tasks and planning before performing them manually. This leads to a waste of money if done frequently with the same quality standard.

After observing these disadvantages, automation testing comes into the picture, where computers are used as intelligent performing devices.

Although machines can’t think like humans, they have some characteristics that are useful for testers to perform activities similar to those we do manually, but at a much faster speed with fewer errors.

Software Testing Approaches

Different software testing approaches are present, and the outcome of software testing approaches is to ensure that the final product meets the requested criteria and is bug-free.

The software testing approach is categorized into three different types:

Black Box Testing

In black-box testing, the QA or tester gives some input to the software product and looks for the specified outputs. The idea behind the name is that the content of the code under test is unknown to the test case. Here, the tester is only concerned with the functional verification.

This black box testing also has some other names, such as Behavioral/Specification-Based/Input-Output Testing. In this testing, the tester tests the application’s functionality without looking at the internal code structure.

White Box Testing

In white-box testing, the tester knows precisely what is going on with the code under the test, and tests are executed primarily to verify the robot of the code rather than its absolute functionality.

This white box testing is carried out at the beginning of the development process by doing unit tests and the early part of the integration phase.

Different synonyms are available for this testing: Glass Box, Clear Box, and Structural Testing. This testing is conducted based on the internal application code. For this testing, the resource has a good knowledge of Programming skills. This type of testing is carried out at the unit level.

Grey Box Testing

This grey box testing combines white box and black box testing. This type of testing is conducted when the software product is moving toward the end of the integration phase and the beginning of usability.

Grey box testing is also known as Translucent testing or Acceptance testing.

Types of Balck Box Testing

As mentioned above, the user tests the application’s functionality in black-box testing. According to that, we have two types of Balck Box Testing, That is:

Functionality Testing

In functional testing, testers verify the application’s functionality and whether the software application behaves as mentioned in the requirement documents.

Testers are testing the feature by giving the appropriate input to verify whether it gives us the expected result. The testers do not need to worry about the application’s source code.

Non Functional Testing

In Non-functionality testing, we are not testing application functionality. We are testing other aspects like performance, load, stress, scalability, security, compatibility, etc. Here, the main focus is determining how to improve the user experience and how fast the system responds to a request.

Different Testing Levels

Before delivering or releasing a software product, it undergoes a thorough testing process to ensure the final product works as expected.

The software application passes through 4 stages after testing:

Unit Testing

This testing is carried out to check whether the individual module’s code is working correctly. Developers mainly do this testing while developing applications. This is also called Module Testing or Component Testing.

Integration Testing

In this testing, we combine different modules as a single unit and test the application connectivity and data transfer between different modules. Integration Testing is again divided into Top-Down Approach, Bottom-Up Approach, and Sandwich Approach.

System Testing (End-to-End Testing)

We are testing the complete application form end to end to ensure the application works correctly after integrating all the modules.

Acceptance Testing

In this testing, we obtain the customer sign-off so that software can be delivered and payments can be received. A few acceptance testing types exist, like Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Testing.

Testing Methods

During testing any application, we came across two different testing methods, that is:

Static Testing

In software testing, static testing is one of the testing techniques carried out without executing the code. Such type of testing is coming under verification.

In static testing, we check the files and documents like test cases, software requirement specifications (SRS), test plans, and other testing artifacts.

In static testing, we verify all these documents to ensure we build the correct software product per the specification document.

Three testing techniques are followable to check the document’s completeness and correctness. those techniques are

• Walkthrough: This means checking a document by reading from the first to the last page.
• Inspection: In this technique, we check a document by searching for specific factors.
• Peer review: In this technique, we verify the document by comparing two similar documents.

These three document testing techniques are called static testing techniques or review techniques.

Dynamic Testing

Like static testing, dynamic testing is also a software testing technique. Here, the testing is carried out by executing the code. This type of testing is coming under validation. We validate the software product to meet the client’s requirements in this process.

Test Artifacts

Testing artifacts is an integral part of software testing. These testing artifacts are prepared during the process of software testing. Finally, the testing artifacts are shared with the clients, stakeholders, team manager, team lead, and team members.

Before delivering the Software or project, it goes through many stages or cycles called SDLC. So, during each phase, we are getting some deliverables. Some of the testing deliverables are:

When do we Stop Testing?

When someone asks you when you stop testing, it’s tough to answer this because no one knows when errors will occur. because one can never be sure when an error or a fault will occur in software. However, some standards help us determine the testing closely. That is:

• Sufficient pass percentage: It depends on the stakeholder, but the testing can be stopped when the test case pass percentage reaches a certain level.
• After a successful test case execution: After a complete cycle of test cases executed after the last known bug fix.
• On meeting deadline: No high-priority bugs exist if the project deadline is met.

Software Testing Companies

Nowadays, many big MNC companies are providing software testing services to two other core software development companies. thought about some of the big companies who are on the list offering this type of assistance:

Software Testing Interview Questions

We understand that most QA testers are looking for software testing interview questions. Remember that you have collected from various online resources and also from inspectors who have to attend multiple positions in software testing companies. You can follow those questions by using our software testing interview question link.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, software testing is an ongoing, dynamic discipline that significantly contributes to developing high-quality software. It is an integral part of the software development life cycle, and continuous improvement in testing methodologies is essential for staying ahead in the ever-changing technological landscape.

Feel free to share your thoughts, questions, or suggestions for improving this article in the comments below. Your feedback is valuable and contributes to refining our understanding of software testing practices.