Software Testing – An expert way to assure Quality to your customers

Software testing is often underrated when it comes to tight deadlines and deliverables. Developers try to compromise in software testing phases, and this leads to more confusion and client dissatisfaction. A professional software developer is the one who remains calm an ensures that the developed solutions go through proper checks and trouble shooting well before the software is due to be delivered or deployed. There are situations when the software development companies do not have an in-house testing team or lack certain tools and resources. In this case, they use third party software testing companies to complete the process.

Software Testing-All you need to know about

Software testing, we all know is a mandatory process that needs to be carried out during, after and beyond the development of any software solution. It helps identify major and minor glitches. Early and regular identification, can help developers ensure that the finished product is error free. Imagine, developing a software and deploying it without any testing or quality checks? What would be the result? The answers could be endless and rolling out a software this way could jeopardize an entire software development organization.

The lack of proper and robust software testing is a major problem facing development companies. This can be due to many reasons. So when integrating a successful testing processes into software development, a development company should keep a few things in mind.

What software testing actually means

• Verifying whether software meets the expected parameters. It is not a superficial but an in-depth process
• A healthy process involves investigating the product to find any information that is of value to the stakeholders.
• Trying to identify problems before software is released to stakeholders
• An integral step in software development that is often underrated is constant communication with stakeholders and collaboration to improve the product

It is important to keep these points in mind when searching for a good software testing partner. Getting software testing done by a third-party vendor is not an easy task because it can be hard to determine if a company will be a good partner or a bad one. Your knowledge of proper testing and quality assurance processes comes into play here.

How to excel in manual quality testing

Proper Organization

Organization is an important step not only in testing but other processes too. When we talk about manual testing, it becomes necessary to create an organized structure to store all the relevant details of the project so that no integral information is lost or missed. The stored information and communication details are helpful when creating a successful testing strategy and revisiting information exchanged earlier.

Writing detailed bug reports

Bug reports submitted by the tester are of the utmost importance because these reports contain reports of genuine issue in the application. A detailed report is a great benefit to developers because they can just go through it and see what needs to be done next. If the bug report is not clear or it is incomplete, it creates confusion and may lead to misunderstandings or delayed delivery dates.

Clarity in test cases

The optimal size for a test case is 3 to 8 steps. Clarity in test cases can determine the efficiency in your testing tasks. Just like a detailed bug report is important similarly clear and precise test cases are required to carry out and effective testing process. Test cases should not be very long, the longer the test case the trickier it will be for the developer to work through it.

Besides clear case studies and complete bug reports, the tester must have ability to be focused and stay positive while testing the software application. These features enhance the testing process and make it more reliable.

Tools used for robust software testing

Where manual testing is considered a priority in a software development process, automated testing aids the process and makes it more effective.

Good testing tools:

1. Selenium

Selenium is an automated testing tool that runs on various OS systems like Linux, Windows, and iOS. It is a testing framework to perform web application testing. Selenium helps the testers to write tests in various programming languages like Java, PHP, C#, Python, Groovy, Ruby, and Perl. It provides a record and review of the features. These records are easy to learn and utilize. Selenium proudly supports some of the largest browser vendors. Major browsers often include Selenium as a native part of their browser. Selenium is undoubtedly the base for most of the other software testing tools in general.

2. Tosca Testsuite

Tosca Testsuite by Tricentis uses model-based test automation to automate software testing.

Tosca Testsuite comes with the following capabilities:

• Plan and design test case
• Test data provisioning
• Service virtualization network
• Tests mobile apps
• Integration management
• Risk coverage

3. TestingWhiz

The enterprise package of TestingWhiz offers automated testing solutions like web testing, software testing, database testing, API testing, mobile app testing, regression testing and more. It is the testing tool that offers code-less scripting and involves processes such as optimization, automation and cross-browser testing.

Other features include:

• Keyword-driven, data-driven testing, and distributed testing
• Browser Extension Testing
• Object Eye Internal Recorder
• SMTP Integration
• Bug tracking tools- Jira, Mantis, TFS and FogBugz
• Test management tools – HP Quality Center, Zephyr, TestRail, and Microsoft VSTS
• Customized Recording Rule

4. TestComplete

TestComplete is a functional testing platform that offers various solutions to automate testing for desktop, web, and mobile applications.

TestComplete offers the following features:

• GUI testing
• Scripting Language Support – JavaScript, Python, VBScript, JScript, DelphiScript, C++Script & C# Script
• Test visualizer
• Scripted testing
• Test recording and playback

5. Ranorex

Ranorex Studio covers testing of all desktop, web, and mobile applications.

Ranorex offers the following features:

• GUI recognition
• Reusable test codes
• Bug detection
• Integration with various tools
• Record and playback

6. HPE Unified Functional Testing

Formerly known as HP QuickTest Professional, HPE Unified Functional Testing offers testing automation for functional and regression testing for software applications.

Visual Basic Scripting Edition is used by this tool to register the test processes and operates the various objects and controls in testing the applications.

Other features are:

• Mercury Business Process Testing
• Unique Smart Object Recognition
• Error handling mechanism
• Creation of parameters for objects, checkpoints, and data-driven tables
• Automated documentation

7. Sahi

This open-source testing tool is written in Java and JavaScript programming languages.

Sahi provides the following features:

• Performs multi-browser testing
• Supports ExtJS, ZK, Dojo, YUI, etc. frameworks
• Record and playback on the browser testing

8. Watir

Watir, pronounced as ‘Water’, is an open-source testing tool made up of Ruby libraries to automate web application testing.

Watir offers the following features:

• Tests any language-based web application
• Cross-browser testing
• Compatible with business-driven development tools like RSpec, Cucumber, and Test/Unit
• Tests web page’s buttons, forms, links, and their responses

9. Telerik TestStudio

Telerik TestStudio offers one solution to automate desktop, web, and mobile application testing including UI, load, and performance testing.

Telerik TestStudio offers various compatibilities like:

• Support for programming languages like HTML, AJAX, ASP.NET, JavaScript, Silverlight, WPF, and MVC
• Integration with Visual Basic Studio 2010 and 2012
• Record and playback
• Cross-browser testing
• Manual testing
• Integration with bug tracking tools

10. Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio by Katalon LLC is built on top of Appium with a specialized IDE interface for API, web and mobile testing. This tool includes a full package of powerful features that help overcome common challenges in web UI test automation.

Katalon Studio consists of the following features:

• XPath, object re-identification
• Built-in object repository
• Supports Java/Groovy scripting languages
• Built-in support for Image-based testing
• Support Continuous Integration tools like Jenkins & TeamCity
• Supports Duel-editor Interface
• Customizable execution workflow

Conclusion

Software testing is the whole and sole process in which the application’s actual working state can be diagnosed. Some software development organizations get it done in house whereas, some require outsourcing. Software testing is a vast topic and its process very from organization to organization. But it is a critical step and should be carried out by any reliable team.