Software testing is extremely important when it comes to risks related to performance, security, continuity, quality and usability of different devices, applications or websites. But nowadays there are some variants of software testing methods and so many different test tools (and the list is still growing) that many companies no longer know how to test their software efficiently and what to do with the enormous amount of data.
When you start the software testing adventure you will definitely come across different variants of tests that you can perform which are in every way and for different purposes and stages important to set up. For example, think of functional testing, unit testing, automation testing and agile testing. In this article we will briefly introduce you to a selection of software tests you can run and what the main purpose is.
Types of software testing
Let us start with the division between functional and non-functional tests. The main difference between the two is what they test. In a functional test, the user-friendliness and the functions are tested. In a non-functional test, other aspects are examined, such as performance and security.
Functional testing:
- Unit testing: A unit test is a form of software testing that is performed on a single unit or component to test the corrections that have been made. Developers use these tests to test their code.
- Integration testing: Within an integration test, two or more modules of an application are logically grouped and tested as a whole.
- System testing: In a system test, the tester evaluates the entire system against the specified requirements.
- Acceptance Testing: Acceptance testing is a test where the user (customer/company) test the software with real-time business scenarios.
- Usability Testing: A usability test is used to test the user experience. For example, the look and feel can be tested.
Non-functional testing:
- Security Testing: A security test is performed by a special team to test the system for threats, for example cross site scripting. A commonly used method is to have specialists hack their own system to discover where the entrances are.
- Performance testing: By performing a performance test, the stability and response time of an application is tested. This is done, for example, by performing a load test or a stress test.
- Test Automation: Regression tests are often automated, especially in agile environments. Worldwide there are more than 200 test tools you can use.
- Compatibility testing: A compatibility test checks how the software holds up in a different environment, web server, hardware or network environment.
It’s a software testing jungle
Software tests are designed to make software to meet the requirements, more secure, user friendly and profitable. However, in practice we see a major pitfall for automated testing. There seems to be a test (tool) solution for every problem. All test tools say they can provide new insights or being more user friendly than another one. Most of the time a tester needs to have technical skills to set up efficient test automation. And all tools deliver their solution in their own way or reports in other fashions. Not necessarily being able to work together with other tools and test automation solutions.
As a result, you have a lot of data from different test tools at your disposal that needs to be brought together and managed in a consistent way to be efficient again. You need to know what is being tested when and why. We see that this management of test results is not happening because it is too complicated and simply takes too much time. This is often the bottleneck and testing will delay the speed in software development (again). How do you ensure that all data is correctly read out and used for improving the quality of the software? How do you make sure you do not just run every test when not necessary? How do you know which ones will be inefficient? How can you point out easily what the cause of a bug is?
How often have you seen a bug at the final stage, which you already have seen before?
It happens more often than you think, because you cannot not remember all bugs or errors. The human brain cannot remember everything. Besides, if we look at all the test output that automatic testing generates, there is just too much data to follow and it is growing all the time. Therefore, to make this process insightful and efficient again, we created a solution.
