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Software testing involves assessing a program's functionality to identify defects and ensure it meets technical specifications. Effective testing confirms that a software application is reliable, efficient, and user-friendly, handling all scenarios, including unusual and edge cases.
There are two main ways to test the software.
1. Manual Testing
2. Automation Testing
1. Manual testing: is a software testing process in which test cases are executed manually. The main objective of manual testing is detecting the bugs and defects of a software or application. Testers will execute the test cases that have been designed from end user’s perspective. Manual testing is essential because all the test cases can’t be automated.
Types of Manual Testing:
White Box Testing: It provides the testers with complete knowledge of the application being tested, including access to source code and design document.
Black Box Testing: is a software testing technique that evaluates a system without knowledge of its internal structure, design, or code. Testers focus on the input and output of the test objects, verifying the system’s behavior and functionality.
Gray Box Testing: It is the combination of the white-box testing and black-box testing. Testers have partial knowledge of the internal structure or code of an application.
Types of Black Box Testing:
Functional Testing: Functional testing is a type of software testing that ensures each function of the application works as specified and required. It involves providing test input, expecting specific output, comparing actual output with expected output.
Non-Functional Testing: Non-functional testing is a type of software that verifies non-functional aspects of the product, such as performance, stability and usability.
Types of Functional Testing:
Unit Testing: This testing is mainly performed by developers. Here they test small units of application which is required certain few inputs and single output. The main purpose is to validate each unit of application, performs as designed. This testing helps detects defects early on, reducing the problems.
Integration Testing: is a type of software testing where individual units, modules or components are combined and tested as a single entity. This testing phase ensures that each integrated component works with others.
System Testing: This part of testing is a critical level of testing that verifies and validates the complete and fully integrated application, ensuring it meets the end-to-end system specifications.
Acceptance Testing (UAT): Acceptance testing, also known as User Acceptance Testing (UAT), is the final phase of testing where the client, business, or customer puts the software through real-world scenarios to ensure it meets their expectations. This critical phase involves testing the software with actual business cases to verify that all features and functionalities work as intended. Once the end user accepted, this software is ready for production and goes live.
Alpha Testing: This is used to determine the product in the development testing environment by a testers team. This helps to identify bugs early on, ensuring the product meets quality standards before release.
Beta Testing: This testing takes the application to the real end users in their environment. This phase they collect the feedback from users and fixes defects.
Types of Non-functional testing:
Performance Testing: Performance testing is a crucial type of software testing that verifies an application's performance under expected workloads. By conducting performance testing, optimize the software’s efficiency, reliability, and user experience, ensuring it meets the required standards and can handle real-world demands.
Load testing: Assessing system performance under a specific load.
Stress testing: Pushing the system to its limits to identify breaking points.
Endurance testing: Evaluating system performance over an extended period.
Scalability testing: Measuring system performance as the load increases.
Usability Testing: Usability testing evaluates an application's user experience from the user's perspective, focusing on look, feel, and user-friendliness.
Exploratory Testing: is used in discovering defects that might have been missed through other testing methods.
Cross-Browser Testing: This testing involves testing an application on various browsers, operating systems and mobile devices to ensure consistency in look, feel and performance.
Accessibility Testing: This testing determines if applications or software are accessible to people with disabilities.
Security Testing: This testing is performed by specialized teams to assess the security of applications, software or websites against internal and external threats.
Penetration Testing (Ethical Hacking): This testing also known as ethical hacking. It is simulated cyberattack on the system to identify the security weakness.
Compatibility Testing: It is useful to verifies whether software can run seamlessly on various hardware configurations, operating systems (windows, Unix, Mac OS, etc.), software applications, network environments, mobile platforms, different software versions.
Backward Compatibility Testing: Verifies compatibility with older versions
Forward Compatibility Testing: Verifies compatibility with newer versions.
2.Automation testing: is the process of automating the execution of test cases through scripts. The main objective of automation testing is to increase the speed of test execution, efficiency of the testing process, reduces overall testing time and human errors. Automation testing performed by using various software tools such as Selenium, JUnit, and TestNG.
Manual Testing vs Automation Testing
Manual Testing:
Pros: Allows for human observation, ideal for user-friendliness and customer experience testing. Suitable for test cases that are run infrequently.
Cons: Prone to human error, making it less reliable, time-consuming and resource-intensive, requires investment in human resources.
Automation Testing:
Pros: More reliable and accurate, as it's performed by tools and scripts. Faster execution and suitable for repetitive testing. Requires investment in testing tools, but reduces resource costs in the long run.
Cons: Lacks human observation, which may be necessary for user experience testing. Initial investment in tools and setup required.
Conclusion
In conclusion, testing of application or software is a crucial aspect of ensuring the quality and reliability of software applications. Both manual and automation testing have their advantages and disadvantages, and a balanced approach that combines both is often the most effective. Manual testing is ideal for user-friendliness and customer experience testing, while automation testing is better suited for repetitive and performance testing. By understanding the different types of testing, including functional, non-functional, and specialized testing, testers can ensure that software applications meet the required standards and are ready for release.