The software tester is responsible for planning the testing, conducting the testing and recording the bug reports. Find out more!
More...
What is Software Testing?
Software testing is the process of ensuring the application's quality.
Such testing methods are used before the application or system goes live and aims to ensure that the application or system is delivered to live operation without errors and in accordance with the expected requirements.
The requirements to be verified during testing may be functional or non-functional (e.g. response time, load capacity, etc.).
Why is a Software Tester Essential?
Because a good software tester's work ensures that:
Quality: to ensure product quality according to requirements.
Customer Satisfaction: Because of meeting customer needs.
Cost Containment: the earlier testing identifies bugs in the development process, the lower the development cost. On the other hand, the later a defect is discovered, the greater the additional cost of repairing it.
Software Tester Tasks
1. Understanding and Interpreting The System to be Tested
The first task of a software tester is to understand what to test. Depth of understanding is extremely important, as the deeper a tester understands a particular application or system, the more accurately they can define testing tasks.
It is precisely because of this depth of understanding that having the system designer or business analyst who designed the system also perform tests is extremely beneficial in small organizations or for mission-critical systems. After all, they have the advantage of fully comprehending how the system should operate. With this, of course, we got to the shadow side of the testing by the system organizers, the pipe vision. Because the system administrator knows what data to enter on the interface and how the system should operate, he frequently does not allow himself to use the application incorrectly. Of course, this does not happen consciously, but subconsciously.
If the testing task is assigned to a dedicated software tester who is not the system administrator, you can be certain that common issues will arise during the testing process.
Let me emphasize once more: it is critical that the tester not only has a broad understanding of the system but also a very deep and thorough understanding of the system, in order to test its complexities.
2. Detailed List of Transfer Requirements
A good software tester is aware that the purpose of his testing is not only to find bugs in a particular function or transaction but also to perform a clean-up before a handover acceptance test. And the result of the clean-up is a clean and well-functioning application so that no major dysfunctions can arise during handover. In the clean-up, the software tester's job is to point out problems, and the developers' job is to fix them in the software.
If there is no need for handover because the customer is not a business, the situation is slightly different. In this case, there will be no one who will take delivery of the application, but there will be someone who will not use it. And if there will be many users who do not use the application, then the tester and the entire development team have done a poor job. Naturally, this includes the system administrator, project manager, and others.
As a result, the software tester must compile a precise list of delivery/live requirements. This information may be supplied by the project manager, gleaned from system documentation, or extracted from a contract. The critical point is to possess it. True and significant. This list may include functional, performance, and design elements.
3. Preparation of a Testing Scenario
The testing scenario includes the prerequisites for testing, a description of the testing environment, the test documents to be delivered, the testing method, and the test tools. In addition, the test plan, protocol, and report templates.
The term "testing environment" refers to the software and hardware environments, as well as their constituents. Additionally, it contains path information.
The term "deliverable test documentation" refers to either the contractually agreed upon test documentation or, in the absence of such documentation, the collection of documents demonstrating the testing's success.
In principle, testing may be manual or automated, but it is not sufficient to specify these in the test scenario. It also includes a detailed description of how to perform the test.
We use the term "test tools" to refer to the tools we will use during the testing process. Selenium, Katalon Studio, Silk Test, TestComplete, SoapUI, and Ranorex have all frequently used tools today.
The test manager often creates the test scenario, and the test scenario defines the resource allocation for software testing tasks in testing teams.
4. Conduct Tests, Analyze Results
The software tester conducts tests on the test cases specified in the test report and records the results in the test report or test log.
Preliminary testing of test cases is critical, as unplanned testing does not involve systematic checking, but rather a back and forth flapping. By comparison, well-designed test cases enable testing of the vast majority of functions/transactions. Nonetheless, new test cases may arise during testing, necessitating the addition of new test cases to the test scenario by the tester.
The software tester should record the outcome of the testing clearly and unambiguously, along with the severity of the result (e.g. blocking, critical, etc.)
Following testing, the tester shall notify either the project manager or the developers of the results (depending on the project organization design). In the best-case scenario, bugs discovered during testing are immediately fixed or scheduled for a fix in the subsequent release.
5. Bug Fixes, Retesting
Following the resolution of bugs discovered during testing, the software tester should be responsible for retesting the bugs. This testing may apply only to the functions/transactions that failed and may apply to all functions. Retesting is typically performed between scopes of work in most projects.
Purpose of Testing
Verification or validation can be the goal of testing. The objective of verification is to identify software defects; the purpose of validation is to ensure that the system complies with the requirements of the customer.
Types of Testing
You may encounter a wide variety of testing tasks as a software tester. I will attempt to detail only the most significant ones below. It is critical to keep in mind that different tests may be more critical for different systems.
The testing tasks of a software tester can be very diverse; for more information, look at 105 types of testing.
To my mind, the most critical types of testing are as follows:
Unit Test
Unit testing is the process of evaluating a software component's or module's low-level (code) functionality. The term "software component" refers to either a function or a procedure. Developers usually perform unit testing because they have the most in-depth understanding of the unit or class.
Functional Testing
Functional testing ensures that the application meets business requirements. The software tester should examine each function of the application one at a time.
Integration Test
The objective is to test the interoperability and integration of two or more systems/modules. The purpose of testing is to detect functional errors between systems.
Load Test
A load test is used to determine the software's capacity to handle a load and to ensure that the software meets the contract's performance requirements.
Handover Test
A test was carried out with the end-user to ensure a "fail-safe" handover. Of course, in reality, fault-free software is not often encountered. We could also describe this as the "delivery acceptance of software free of known defects".
And an Interesting Type of Testing
Monkey Testing
The purpose of testing is to enter completely random data and start functions to prove whether the system will crash if you start using it haphazardly.
My first such monkey test occurred during my studies when my teacher ran into the software and began pressing the keyboard before accepting it. The application crashed as a result of characters in a numeric field being incompatible with the predefined operation. "There you go, colleague! That is not ready!" - and that final sentence was so accurate!
Software Tester Jobs
Test Manager
Firstly, the test manager/test lead is responsible for organizing testing tasks, creating the conditions for testing, conducting testing, leading the testing team, and external communication.
Manual Tester
Secondly, the manual tester is accountable for becoming familiar with the application documentation, developing test cases, manually executing tests, preparing test documentation, and reporting test results.
Automated Tester
Finally, the tasks of an automated (or automated) tester are the same as those of a manual tester, except that in automated testing, testing is done with software (test scripts, external testing software).
Software Tester Salaries
