Top-4 Types of Software Testing

*Half-crying* Please! Pretty please with a cherry on top: make sure your software is tested by professionals before its release.

Quality Assurance engineers test programs, applications, and websites to make sure they work great. However, there are so many types of testing, that sometimes QA experts just don’t have enough time to perform them all. For those, not knowing where to start, I am going to share the four most needed types of testing that will prepare your software for release.

Functional testing

Functional testing is the type of software examination where the QA engineer checks all functions so that they act as expected. Let’s figure it out on the example of Instagram. There’s a “Like” button under each post, and after you tap it, you expect it to turn red. If it doesn’t turn red, it is a functional bug. So, here’s what you could expect from software that’s ready for release:

• basic functions working well — make sure buttons are responsive and do what is expected, links lead to the right pages, input forms send information to the server, and drop-down menus are easy to navigate and don’t break the UI.
• easy navigation — everyone is used to the “Search” input form to be somewhere on top of the homepage, not on the bottom.
• error handling — nothing is perfect but we can at least try. Check whether your error pages or pop-ups work and clearly explain how to handle the issue. Help your users to calm down when there’s a 404 on your website, or “the server is not responding” on a desktop program.
• accessibility — take care of speech recognition and check whether all images have alternative text for those who use a screen reader.

Remember that functional testing is crucial if you want your target audience to be loyal to the brand like people are with Apple and Netflix.

UI/UX testing

Each program has to be tested in terms of appearance during the development process and right before it goes out on the market. Let’s take a look at the key points that deserve your attention if you want to make the app’s user interface enjoyable:

• usefulness — every item of the interface has to be useful. Don’t overpack your program with icons and input fields that could be easily avoided.
• ease — each button and function has to be obvious and easy to find.
• accuracy — check whether the information such as numbers and text content is up to date.
• appeal — make sure the interface of your program is enjoyable to look at, especially if it’s a complex software with hundreds of functions and a wide range of customization possibilities.

Security testing

This type of testing is hard to perform with a lack of specific expertise. Security testing is usually done by experienced professionals who can break your software on purpose to detect the potential threats and then restore it without harmless consequences. The key points to check while assessing the security level of your program are the following:

• data protection — to protect sensitive user data from breaches and leaks, make sure data encryption performs well.
• interface bugs and holes — there are many amateur hackers, aka “script kiddies” and “packet monkeys”, who use templated malicious scripts instead of writing their own. Even though they are inexperienced enough to perform these actions anonymously, they can seriously harm your program. Hackers use interface vulnerabilities to infect the software with script injections. This is usually done through the so-called holes in the code and poorly protected input fields. In this case, security testing engineer has to thoroughly check HTML and JavaScript code and make sure all bugs are fixed.
• admin access — especially for complex software, there should be a reliable firewall to block unauthorized access to the servers.

Security testing is the best investment in the future of your product, so don’t hesitate to keep up with the time of data breaches and GDPR.

Load testing

If you want your software to be used by millions and actually handle such a big number of people, you definitely need load testing. Here, look at this HuffPost example. The platform is visited by millions daily and it doesn’t crash because it was thoroughly checked before the release. Here are the points to consider if you want to have a stable software:

• response time — web, application, and database server components have to process and respond to multiple user requests quickly enough to handle the load. QA expert has to check these liaises and define the issues that may drag the process down.
• performance under various loads — each application has a maximum operating capacity. The goal here is to check whether your software performs great under sudden, huge loads as good as under small loads. For this, QA engineers overload the app on purpose and trace back the issues if they occur.

Wrapping up

Everyone who strives for high-quality software orders testing services before the product goes out on the market. It is not advice, it is a rule. The advice is — trust your software to professionals. Make sure the vendor of QA services has all needed devices and uses only up-to-date testing software to check your product.