Introduction to Testing Methodologies

Software Testing Methodology is defined as the various approaches, strategies and testing types to test an application to ensure that the application looks and performs as expected and meets users/client expectations.

On a broad level, Test Methodologies involve all the different types of functional and non-functional testing to validate the application.

What is Testing Methodologies?

The objective of applying various testing methodologies in your testing process is to make sure the application can successfully perform and deliver as expected and in various environments and across multiple platforms.

Functional testing involves verifying if all the business requirements are being fulfilled by the application without any error. It involves all possible test types to verify if each part of the application behaves as expected and as per the business or the customer requirements.

Functional testing methods follow an order are listed below:

Unit testing
Integration testing
System testing
Acceptance testing

Non-functional testing is performed to test performance, usability, reliability, compatibility of an application. These include:

Performance testing
Security testing
Usability testing
Compatibility testing

The key to developing and releasing a high-quality application that is easily accepted by the end-users is to build a great testing framework that can perform both the functional and non-functional testing.

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1. Unit Testing

A unit is the smallest part of an application that can be tested. The objective of the unit testing is to validate each unit to see if it has been developed as required. A unit may be an individual program, function, method, etc.

Unit testing is often performed by the developers. The developers perform unit testing by running the piece of code before passing it on to the testing team.

Unit testing is a very important part of the testing process because if unit testing is performed perfectly then the defects are identified early and the time to fix these errors is reduced.

2. Integration Testing

Integration testing is the type of testing where individual units are grouped and tested. This type of testing is done to expose any kinds of defects in the interaction among the integrated units or groups

All the units are integrated together after the unit testing phase to create components that can perform some specific tasks. Then the integration testing is performed on these created components to check if the components behave as expected and the interactions among the units are seamless. Integration testing can be performed by developers as well as the testers either manually or using automation.

3. System Testing

System testing is performed when all the units are developed and integrated to form a complete system performing a task. System testing verifies that the system meets its requirements and performs as expected. This completely integrated system can be a specific interface or a screen like a login window.

The system testing phase is carried out by the testing team which tests the end to end functionality of the application before the code application is ready for production.

4. Acceptance Testing

The acceptance testing phase is the final testing phase of the functional testing process where the application is tested for its readiness to be delivered to the client. This phase ensures that the application meets all the business requirements and criteria and is ready for delivery. The application is tested by both the testers from the company and outside the organization (beta testers).

The beta testing phase is the most important phase where the company gets the product tested by the real end-users and address any defects encountered.

5. Performance Testing

Performance testing is a type of testing technique used to verify if the application will behave as expected under heavy load and under different conditions. Performance testing is done to check the speed, scalability, and stability of an application. Performance testing is a major of 4 types:

Load testing
Stress testing
Endurance testing
Spike testing

6. Security Testing

Security testing is a type of testing done to ensure if the data in the application is secure and well protected. The testing team intentionally tries to find ways or loopholes to get into the system to gain unauthorized access which can result in loss of information or security risk. Some of the testing methods to check security are:

Integrity
Confidentiality
Authentication
Authorization
Availability
Non-repudiation

7. Usability Testing

Usability testing is the testing technique to see how easy it is for the end-users to use the application. Usability testing takes place with the real users to see how easy it is for them to perform the task in the application.

8. Compatibility Testing

Compatibility testing is done to see how an application will work on different environments like various hardware, operating systems, mobile devices, platforms, browsers, or network conditions. The objective of this testing is to ensure that the application is platform-independent and performs its expected functions across various environments.

Importance of Testing Methodologies

Software testing methodologies are important to figure out the bugs and errors in the application that were made while developing the application.

Testing of the application makes sure that the reliability of the company is maintained in the minds of the users and they are satisfied with the application.
Testing enhances the Quality of the product by eliminating any defects in the application. Better Quality products delivered to increase the confidence of the users for the company.
High-Quality Testing ensures the effective and defect-free performance of the application.
Quality Testing ensures that the application does not result in any failures and defects are identified as early as possible. Defects identified at later stages are very expensive to correct and can damage the company reputation if found in production.

Conclusion

The testing methodologies are required in your testing process to make sure the application can successfully perform and deliver as expected and in various environments and across multiple platforms. Quality testing methodologies result in a higher quality product, greater reliability on the product and higher client and customer satisfaction.