Testing concepts for beginners

Why we need a Tester

CAR SALESMAN: The car is complete - you just need to paint it.

Whatever a software organization develops should meet the needs of the customer. Testing means to make sure that the product meets the needs of the customer.

If our job is to give a complete car to the customer (and not ask the customers to paint the car) then we should ensure that we catch and correct all the defects in the car ourselves. This is the fundamental objective of testing.

Just Testing is not enough, we need effective testing

In the fall of 1994, the Disney company released its first multimedia CD-ROM game for children, The Lion King Animated Storybook. This was Disney's first venture into the market and it was highly promoted and advertised. Sales were huge. On December 26, the day after Christmas, Disney's customer support phones began to ring, and ring, and ring.

It turns out that Disney failed to test the software on many different PC models available in the market. The software worked on the few systems only.

Costs increases as time increases

A bug found and fixed during the early stages cost next to nothing. The same bug, if not found until the software is coded and tested, might cost $10 to $100. If a customer finds it, the cost could easily be thousands or even millions of dollars.

As an example of how this works, consider the Disney Lion King case discussed earlier. The root cause of the problem was that the software wouldn't work on a very popular PC platform. If, in the early specification stage, someone had researched what PCs were popular and specified that the software needed to be designed and tested to work on those configurations, the cost of that effort would have been minimal.

As it turned out, however, the bug was completely missed until many thousands of CD-ROMs were created and purchased. Disney ended up paying for telephone customer support, replacement CD-ROMs, as well as another debug, fix, and test cycle. It's very easy to burn up your entire product's profit if serious bugs make it to the customer.

Bug

A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program.

Website Testing

1. Testing is a process to find bugs.

2. Testing is a process to find bugs and find them as early as possible.

3. Testing is a process to find bugs, find them as early as possible, and make sure they get fixed.

Types of Testing

Generally black box testing will begin early in the software development i.e. in requirement gathering phase itself. But for white box testing approach one has to wait for the designing has to complete.

We can use black testing strategy almost any size either it may be small or large. But white box testing will be effective only for small lines of codes or piece of codes.

In white box testing we can not test Performance of the application. But in Black box testing we can do it.

Exercise: Find out the bugs in this screenshot

Answers:

1. Spelling of Google in "Google Search" button.

2. It should be Map instead of Maps at top.

3. News hyperlink should be slligned properly.

4. It should be Shopping and not Hopping.

5. Toggle button should be displayed in downward direction.

6. "Advanced Search" and "Language tools" links should be properly horrizonlay alligned to the text box..

7. It should be written "I'm Feeling Lucky" and not "I'm Feeling Unlucky" on the button.

8. Done Done is written 2 times.

9. Two downward arrows in scrollbar.

10. Cross icon at top right is not displaying properly.

11. In menu bar, "Tools" should appear first instead of "Help".

12. Favicon (Favorites icon, URL icon or Website icon) should be displayed for Google.

13. Left side of text box is truncated.

14. There should be more space after toggle button.

15. Line should not break at top.

16. Double pipes line should not be displayed at top.

17. "i" should be in small case in "Sign In" at top right.

18. All the links should be of Blue color.

19. Minimize icon is truncated.

20. Maximize icon is displated improperly.

21. Double signs are displayed at center of scrollbar.

Performance Testing

If chair is designed for 100 kg weight, and my weight is 70 kg then that testing is called as normal testing. If my weight is 100 kg then that testing is called as load testing. If my wt is 120 kg then that testing called as stress testing.

Usability Testing: A process that employs people as testing participants who are representative of target audience to evaluate the degree to which a product meets specific usability criteria.

Usability testing is a technique used to evaluate a product by testing it with representative users.

Steps:

a. Participation of QA and designers.

b. Participation of sample end users (Non Team Members).

c. Observation by test moderator.

d. Development of research questions.

e. Recomendation of improvements to the design of the product.

Examples of Usability issues:

1. Long Scrolling Pages

2. Non-Standard Link Colors

3. Complex Website Addresses (URLs)

Related Testing Topics:
a. Testing Concepts
b. Testing Models
c. Test Cases
d. Testing Tools
e. Black Box testing