Software Testing: How Important It Is?

A flawed software application can have a huge impact on the developer’s revenue, credibility and reputation in the longer run. So before delivering the software to the client, each company needs to ensure that it is working flawlessly and meeting all requirements or specification of the client. There are many instances when minor flaws in software have resulted in both human and monetary loss. That is why; software testing has already becomes an integral and significant part of the software development life cycle (SDLC).

The agile software development principles further do not consider software development and software testing as two separate processes. The agile methodology emphasizes on the programmers and testers working as a single team, and work together to improve the quality of the software. As an integral part of SDLC, software testing process aims to assess the completeness, correctness and quality of the software before its delivery. At the same time, the test results help businesses to check if the software meets all requirements or specifications of the client.

Why Software Testing is Important for Modern Businesses?

A number of studies have indicated that the cost of fixing bugs in the software increases, if they are not identified and fixed early. When the defects or bugs in the software are detected early, it becomes easier for programmers to eliminate them. That is why; most companies nowadays introduce testing in early phases of SDLC. They further deploy independent QA professionals to assess the software during various stages of development.

Nowadays, IT companies to develop custom and mission-critical software applications. A minor bug in the mission-critical software application can result in both financial and human losses. For instance, a minor flaw in the software used by an aircraft can result in irreparable losses. That is why; the IT company must perform a variety of tests to identify and eliminate all defects, bugs or flaws in the application before it is delivered to the client.

Each modern user has option to choose from thousands of identical software applications. So to keep the users interested and engaged, each enterprise must deliver high quality software. When the software is tested thoroughly and repeatedly, its quality can be assesses more effectively. Based on the test result, the company can launch a high quality product that will stay in the market in the longer run.

Software testing further becomes essential for businesses due to the differences between the development and production environments. While developing the product, programmers focus mainly on its features and functionality. But the features and functionality will have different effect on individual users. When the application is assessed in the testing environment, it becomes easier for QA professionals to assess the user experience accurately. As testing environment and production environment are identical, the performance of the software can be assessed more accurately.

Often clients require developers to include new features in the software during different phases of development. Each time a new feature or functionality is added to the application, the code needs to be tested thoroughly. The QA professionals perform regression testing to ensure that both legacy and new features are working flawlessly. The tests will further help the business to assess the quality of the updated product before it goes live.

The modern websites and web applications must be compatible with multiple operating systems, devices and web browsers. So the enterprises must assess the web application’s performance on various devices, platforms and browsers. The seasoned testers use advanced tools to assess the website’s compatibility across multiple platforms and devices. The test results further help developers to make changes to the code to enhance the website’s compatibility and accessibility.

Many businesses deploy independent QA professionals to protect their goodwill in the competitive market. The online forums and social networks have made it easier for modern users to highlight the defects or flaws in a particular software application. So the enterprise needs to ensure that the end user detects no bugs of flaws. When the software is tested thoroughly, the chances of bugs detected by users are eliminated. Thus, software testing will help developers to impress users and stay in the business over a longer period of time.

With more and more businesses adopting agile development methodologies, software development and testing have now become inseparable processes. Each business has to invest in comprehensive software testing to get higher returns, enhance its reputation, and retain clients.

Mindfire Testing Practice has a unique combination of skilled software engineering & testing teams with proven expertise in testing tools and methodologies for a wide range of solutions. If you have any testing requirements and are looking for an ideal IT partner offering expert QA/Testing services, send in your queries to sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com and we would get back to you in 72 hours.

How Good or Bad is Negative Testing

Nowadays each IT company has to deliver high quality software applications to retain clients in the longer run. So most companies deploy seasoned QA professionals to verify and validate the software thoroughly to ensure that it is working according to the client’s requirements and expectations. While assessing the software, the testers have to test it from positive as well as negative point of mind. That is why; the QA professionals have to perform both positive and negative testing to assess the quality of the software more effectively.

As the name indicates, positive testing is performed to verify and validate the software based on valid input data. While performing positive testing, the testers focus on the behaviour of the application based on expected inputs. On the other hand, negative testing is performed using invalid input data. While performing negative testing, QA professionals have to check how the software behaves with negative or unintentional user input. Thus, the primary objective of negative testing is check if the software shows errors when it is not supposed to, and does not show errors when it is supposed to.

Negative testing can be described more effectively through an example. For instance, the software has a field that is required to accept only integer value. So the testers have to perform negative testing to check if the application shows a validation error message each time users enter a non-integer fields. The certified QA/Testing professionals have to assess the software behaviour of the software by entering invalid or negative inputs like alphabets and special characters. Thus, negative testing helps QA professionals to identify if the application is crashing under different situations.

Common Negative Testing Scenarios

Both desktop and web applications include fields marked as required. So the testers need to assess the application’s behaviour when the required field is empty. They can simply display a message box to the user, and compel him not to leave the required field empty. They can perform negative testing to ensure that the application responds correctly when the required field is empty.

Most software applications accept user inputs through forms or dialog boxes. The controls allow users to submit a variety of data including text, numeric and date. So the testers have to perform negative testing using inappropriate input to ensure that the user input perfectly complements the field type. They can assess a date field by entering “02/30/2015” or validate an age field by entering “abc”.

The applications also contain fields that need to accept user input up to a particular limit. For instance, a textbox accepting the user’s age must not accept 220 or -10. So the testers must test the performance of the application by entering invalid data into such fields.

Some applications even require integer fields to accept data in certain range. For instance, a website may allow users to enter numbers in a specific field ranging from 10 to 100. To assess the applications behaviour accurately, the testers have to enter numbers less than 10 or more than 100. They can write negative tests to ensure that the users are not allowed to enter numbers less than 10 and more than 100.

Sometimes developers have to restrict the size or length of user input. For instance, they have to create fields to accept user’s name with a specific number of characters. In such scenarios, the QA professionals have to perform negative testing to assess the software’s behaviour when the number of characters into the field by a user exceeds the allowed limit.

Some websites provide information only to registered users. So each user needs to login before accessing any internal web page. The testers have to perform negative testing to ensure that the web pages cannot be accessed by random visitors.

On the whole, negative testing and positive testing complement each other. The QA professionals must perform negative testing to enhance test coverage and find more bugs in the application. The testing will further help the enterprise to deliver a more reliable and stable software application that does not crash under different situations. However, negative testing must be performed once positive testing is completed, but before the software goes live. The testers, however, have option to perform negative testing based on any input value to get more accurate and reliable test results.

Mindfire Solutions has been providing expert QA/Testing services for the last 16 years and is adept at using both Negative and Positive testing techniques for ensuring the quality of the software applications. If you are interested to hire the software testing services of Mindfire Solutions, send in your requirements via email to sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com and we will get back to you in 72 hours.