What is Software Testing? All you need to know about Methods and Testing

Today’s world of technology is completely dominated by machines, and their behavior is controlled by the software powering it. Software testing provides the solution to all our worries about machines behaving the exact way we want them to. This article on “What is Software Testing” will provide you with an in-depth knowledge about how testing works in the following sequence :

• What is Software Testing?
• Why do we need Testing?
• Principles of Software Testing
• Software Testing Life Cycle
• Types of Testing
• Software Testing Companies

What is Software Testing?

Software Testing is a process of evaluating the functionality of a software application to find any software bugs. It checks whether the developed software met the specified requirements  and identifies any defect in the software in order to produce a quality product. It is basically executing a system in order to identify any gaps, errors, or missing requirements in contrary to the actual requirements.

It is also stated as the process of verifying and validating a software product. It checks whether the software product:

• • Meets the business and technical requirements that guided its design and development
  • Works as per the requirement
  • Can be implemented with the same characteristics

Now let’s move ahead with this article on What is Software Testing and know more about the importance of testing.

Why do we need Software Testing?

The software application’s success rate controls the growth of our business. It plays an important role for the development of software applications and products.

We need software testing for the following reasons:

1. Cost Effective – Testing has many benefits and one of the most important ones is cost-effectiveness. Testing our project on time can save money in the long run. Software development consists of many stages and if bugs are caught in the earlier stages it costs much less to fix them.
2. Security – This is the most sensitive and vulnerable part of software testing. Users are always looking for trusted products that they can rely on. It helps in removing problems and risks beforehand.
3. Product Quality – In order to make your product vision come to life, it has to work as planned. It is important to follow the product requirements because it helps you get the required end results.
4. Customer Satisfaction – The ultimate goal for a product owner is to give the best customer satisfaction.  Software should be tested in order to bring the best user experience possible. Being the best product in this saturated market will help you gain trustworthy clients which will have great long-term effects.

Now let’s move ahead and have a look at some of the principles of Software Testing.

Principles of Software Testing

Testing of software is exceptionally imaginative and an intellectual task for testers to perform. Testing of software or applications consist of some principles that play a significant role for a software tester while testing the project.

The Principles of Software Testing are as follows :

1. Software testing can help in detecting bugs: Testing any software or project can help in revealing a few or some defects that may or may not be detected by developers. However, testing of software alone cannot confirm that your developed project or software is error free. Hence, it’s essential to devise test cases and find out as many defects as possible.
2. Testing with effectiveness is impossible: Until your project or application under test has a straightforward structure having limited input, it won’t be likely or achievable to check and test all feasible sets of data, modules, and scenarios.
3. Early testing: The earlier you will begin to test your project or software the better you will find to utilize your existing time.
4. Defect in clustering: At the time of testing, you can observe that majority of the defects or bugs reported are because of a small number of modules inside your software or system.
   
5. Software testing is context-dependent: Various methods, procedures, and kinds of testing are there which defines the type and characteristics of the application. For example, an application related to health device needs more testing and doctor based feedbacks than a game or small software.
6. Error free or Bug-free software is a myth: Just because when a tester tested an application and didn’t detect any defects in that project, doesn’t indicate or imply that your software is ready for shipping.

Now that we know about software testing and the principles of it, let’s move ahead and have a look at the life cycle of software testing.

Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC)

Software Testing Life Cycle is a sequence of different activities performed by the testing team to ensure the quality of the software or the product. It defines a series of activities conducted to perform Software Testing. It also identifies what test activities to carry out and when to accomplish those test activities. In STLC process, each activity is carried out in a planned and systematic way and each phase has different goals and deliverable.

The different phases of Software testing life cycle are:

• Requirement Analysis – Requirement Analysis is the first step involved in Software testing life cycle. In this step, Quality Assurance (QA) team understands the requirement in terms of what we will testing & figure out the testable requirements.
• Test Planning – Test Planning is most important phase of Software testing life cycle where all testing strategy is defined. This phase is also called as Test Strategy phase. In this phase,Test Manager is  involved to determine the effort and cost estimates for entire project. It defines the objective & scope of the project.
• Test Case Development – The Test case development begins once the test planning phase is completed. This is the phase of STLC where testing team notes the detailed test cases. Along with test cases, testing team also prepares the test data for testing. Once the test cases are ready then these test cases are reviewed by peer members or QA lead.
• Test Environment Setup – Setting up the test environment is vital part of the Software Testing Life Cycle. A testing environment is a setup of software and hardware for the testing teams to execute test cases. It supports test execution with hardware, software and network configured.
• Test Execution – The next phase in Software Testing Life Cycle is Test Execution. Test execution is the process of executing the code and comparing the expected and actual results. When test execution begins, the test analysts start executing the test scripts based on test strategy allowed in the project.
• Test Cycle Closure – The final phase of the Software Testing Life Cycle is Test Cycle Closure. It involves calling out the testing team member meeting & evaluating cycle completion criteria based on Test coverage, Quality, Cost, Time, Critical Business Objectives, and Software. 

Moving on with this article on What is Software Testing, lets take a look at the types of testing.

Types of Testing

Testing is an integral part of any successful software project. The type of testing depends on various factors, including project requirements, budget, timeline, expertise, and suitability. Software testing is a huge domain but it can be broadly categorized into two areas such as :

• Manual Testing – Manual Testing is a type of Software Testing where Testers manually execute test cases without using any automation tools. It means the application is tested manually by QA testers.

Tests need to be performed manually in every environment, using a different data set and the success or failure rate of every transaction should be recorded.This type of testing requires the tester’s knowledge, experience, analytical/logical skills, creativity, and intuition.

Some of the tools used for Manual Testing are:

1. Stryka
2. Bugzilla
3. Jira
4. Mantis
5. Trac
6. Redmine
7. Fogbuz
8. Lighthouse

• Automated Testing – Automation testing is an Automatic technique where the tester writes scripts by own and uses suitable software to test the software. It is basically an automation process of a manual process. Like regression testing, Automation testing also used to test the application from load, performance and stress point of view.

Automated testing allows you to execute repetitive task and regression test without the intervention of manual tester. Even though all processes are performed automatically, automation requires some manual effort to create initial testing scripts.

Some of the tools used for Automated Testing are :

1. 1. 1. Selenium
      2. TestingWhiz
      3. Ranorex
      4. Sahi
      5. Waitir
      6. WaitiN
      7. Tosca TestSuite

Selenium is the household name when it comes to test automation. It is considered the industry standard for user interface automation testing of Web applications.

Moving on with this article on What is Software Testing, lets take a look at the some of the Top Companies that use software testing.

Software Testing Companies

There are many big corporate companies providing testing services along with other core software development services. Let’s have a look at some of the big names among the Software Testing companies :

• ScienceSoft
• Capgemini
• Wipro
• Cognizant
• HP
• Infosys
• TCS
• Hexaware

Now with this, we come to an end to this “What is Software Testing” blog. I Hope you guys enjoyed this article and understood what is software testing and the steps involved in the cycle of testing. 

Now that you have understood testing, check out the Software Testing Fundamentals Course by Edureka, a trusted online learning company with a network of more than 250,000 satisfied learners spread across the globe. This course is designed to introduce you to the complete software testing life-cycle. You will be learning different levels of testing, test environment setup, test case design technique, test data creation, test execution, bug reporting, CI/CD pipeline in DevOps, and other essential concepts of software testing. Got a question for us? Please mention it in the comments section of “What is Software Testing” and we will get back to you.