Software Testing Phase in SDLC explained in detail!

Importance of Software Testing phase in SDLC

It assists businesses in conducting thorough software evaluations and ensuring that their output satisfies customer requirements. As a result of the testing phases that are included in the software development lifecycle, businesses are able to discover all of the flaws and defects that exist in the software before moving on to the implementation phase. If bugs in the software are not fixed before deployment, the client’s operations may suffer.

Additionally, attempting to fix these problems later can be very expensive. The cost you are likely to incur will increase the longer you put off finding these problems. In the lifecycle of software development, testing can be done in a variety of ways. Depending on the software development model, the process stage, and the testing procedure’s goals, different testing techniques may be employed.

Testing Phase in SDLC

In most cases, testing is an ongoing component of the project throughout the SDLC. As a result, regardless of which phase you are in, it is always involved in SDLC in some way. The testing procedures’ primary goal is to report, monitor, resolve, and retest software components until they meet the quality standards defined in the initial SRS. Many teams use documents like RTM to track the project’s main requirements and see how they interact with one another.

Deployment and UAT Importance

It is time to deploy the product where customers can access it after you have tested it and ensured that it meets the standards defined in the SRS. Typically, software companies formally release their products to the market. Depending on the company’s business strategy, product deployment may take several phases. Many businesses use methods such as User Acceptance Testing to gather feedback from the software’s intended users. As a consequence of this, they get the chance to evaluate the programme in an environment that is similar to the actual world. Furthermore, user feedback allows them to determine what exactly needs to be changed in the product for future improvements. It may also assist them in reshaping the product.

Role of Testing in Software Development

We cannot minimise the importance of testing in the creation of software. Software development teams can use the procedure to validate project requirements and functional and non-functional features. It’s possible for new features to affect how previously implemented features function. You can find these issues through testing before they affect the final product. Furthermore, hidden errors are much easier to find if testing is used early in the project. Because of this, fixing these bugs won’t cost as much as fixing them in the later stages. The testing process eliminates the software’s most important bugs, which elevates your final product above that of your rivals. The product’s quality speaks for itself, and customers

Types of Testing in SDLC

The software development life cycle contains a number of crucial phases, some of the most important of which are the testing phases. In order to guarantee that all requirements are satisfied, it is necessary for these processes to be carried out in a methodical manner. System testing, integration testing, acceptance testing, and unit testing are the four primary phases that are typically used by software testers to break down the software testing phase process.

Unit Testing

Unit testing is performed on smaller parts of the software, which the testers will refer to as individual units. These units can be as large as individual features of the software or as small as individual functions, code components, or even classes. In addition, the size of these units might range anywhere from very little to very huge. In most cases, it refers to the smallest testable component of the software, which the testers are able to compile, load, and run. Testing at the unit level ensures that individual components of the software are operating as they should.

Integration Testing

Testers perform what’s called “integration testing,” in which they test the combined functionality of multiple software components all at once. Testing of this nature ensures that the overall system adheres to the prescribed pattern of data flow. These tests are essential to ensure that the integrated system is ready for system testing, which is the ultimate goal of the testing.

System Testing

The procedure known as system testing is the step in integrated testing that involves further combining the various collective systems into a single integrated system. In this step, testers perform a second round of evaluation on the functional requirements of the project and check to see whether the system complies with the requirements that have been specified. In addition to that, testers are able to examine how the various parts of the whole interact with one another. As a result, they are in a position to carry out particular testing procedures, such as testing for performance, load, reliability, and security, on the integrated system.

User Acceptance Testing

During user acceptance testing, customers test out different aspects of the software to determine whether or not it satisfies their needs. If they feel that the product could use some additional improvements, they can request that the development team make those changes. Through this last interaction with end-users and other stakeholders, it is possible to ensure that the product fulfils all of the requirements that have been agreed upon.

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Best Practices for Software Testing Projects

Most product failures are the result of inadequate quality assurance. Since bugs and errors tend to turn customers away and make a product vulnerable to malicious attacks, businesses work to prevent them in their applications. Setting up a team or system that is responsible for quality control within the organizational structure is one way they accomplish this. Software quality assurance (SQA), a subset of quality management, is one of them. It entails several organizational actions designed to encourage the growth of a software development-friendly culture. This goal is achieved through the introduction and establishment of quantifiable, attainable standards of quality (QA).

Quality Management and Quality Control

Software quality control, or SQC for short, is a component of quality management. However, quality control (QC) focuses on implementing a set of practises (and a culture) designed to meet quality requirements. Product-focused quality control certifies products before they are released if they meet predetermined quality standards, giving them the seal of approval. The standards established by the QA team guide the processes and decisions of QC, which does not operate independently. Software testing phase goal is to find flaws, bugs, and problems in software products so that they can be quickly fixed or mitigated.

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1. Adopt a Secure Testing Environment That Is Under Controlled Conditions With a Dedicated Team

Despite its many vulnerabilities, the cloud has many advantages, but it has also given software development teams a false sense of security that leads them to effectively outsource their security responsibilities to it. Additionally, the majority of cloud-deployed products are typically offered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), where end users are typically the ones who find vulnerabilities, much to the chagrin of these customers. Rather than investing in the cloud or internet-based vulnerabilities, firms should instead invest in their own safe testing infrastructure to protect themselves from the possible dangers.

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Maintaining a Dedicated Software Security Testing Team

Organizations with the means should, first and foremost, keep a specialised team dedicated to performing the various penetration tests required to fortify the software in order to identify potential vulnerabilities. They should ideally be knowledgeable about pertinent OWASP Critical Security Risk Profiles and ISO Security Standards, in addition to undergoing regular, rigorous security training. QA teams can simulate regional test scenarios in local testing environments and labs, and then evaluate how dependably responsively their user interface responds under various conditions. Test engineers have the insight to find design flaws before anyone spends time writing a single line of code thanks to the hard-won knowledge they have acquired from stress testing applications in controlled environments. Consequently, before beginning software test cycles, a controlled environment should be established.

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2. Proactively Plan Software Test Cycles

QA tests and the related procedures should be purposefully planned in advance. This will make it possible to define terms and goals and come up with a good way to document things. The wheels of effective communication between software test teams are greased by good documentation. It increases institutional understanding of the accepted best practices for software testing. As a result, there is still a sufficient paper trail describing these best practices when new team members are hired or existing ones depart. A quality assurance plan of some kind is necessary to prepare. The planning process for quality assurance includes creating a quality management plan, a test strategy, test plans, and test cases.

Quality Management Plan

The requirements for software quality are listed in this document. It describes the acceptable level of quality that should be attained and how the project should proceed to do so.

Test Strategy ‍

The project’s business requirements are the main focus of the test strategy, not the software requirements. As a result, it is a higher level document under the project manager’s control.

Test Plan ‍

The project’s business requirements are the main focus of the test strategy, not the software requirements. As a result, it is a higher level document under the project manager’s control.

Test Case‍

Describe the procedures or set of conditions that will be tested.

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3. Use Development Practices That Are Test-Oriented

Waiting until the QA stage before testing software that is still in development is counterproductive and woefully inadequate. Instead, testing should be integrated throughout the entire development process using test-oriented development techniques like pair programming, test-driven development (TDD), and unit testing. By doing this, bugs can be identified and removed earlier in the process.

Test-Drive Development (TDD)

In this method, tests are written before the actual code for the software being implemented, following the test-first methodology. An automated test case for a new feature begins with an initial failure. The code is then written to guarantee that the functionality passes the test. TDD is known to increase output, the calibre of the code, simplify things, and produce documentation that can be executed.

Pair Programming ‍

It takes two minds to scrutinise something, so use both. Two engineers are paired to work cooperatively on a single computer in this type of extreme programming. One writes the code at any given time, and the other offers suggestions. The management, the quality control team, and developers all gain confidence that the software being shipped is reliable and of acceptable quality when tests are implemented throughout the software development cycle. The concept of including testing at every level of development not only improves quality but also lowers the labour and maintenance expenses of correcting defects at a much later time.

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4. Make Sure That Each and Every Test Is Integrated Into The CI/CD Pipeline

Any software testing phase team worth their salt must have an automated CI/CD pipeline because the DevOps era has arrived. Additionally, manual QA procedures are prone to errors. Therefore, it wouldn’t be logical to overlook an important component of contemporary quality assurance testing. Testing automation must be utilised as part of the CD/CI configuration to guarantee that only bug-free code is released into the production system.Therefore, every piece of code that is checked into the CI pipeline should undergo automatic testing in order to maximise the effectiveness of development efforts. Additionally, automated CI/CD pipelines make testing as soon as possible necessary, which improves security by allowing problems to be found earlier in the production chain. CI/CD pipelines simplify testing by removing extraneous complexity.

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5. Adopt Tests Written for Maximum Coverage

Depending on the circumstances, quality assurance teams will utilise various kinds of testing.The primary goal should be to ensure that the tests are developed to provide the broadest coverage feasible, despite the fact that it is not always realistic to cover everything 100% of the time. To undertake a sufficient analysis of the product requirements, test cases should be created to cover them. This will make it possible to test the requirements of the product. It is impossible to predict all of the potential dangers that a software product may be exposed to, not to mention any hidden vulnerabilities that may become apparent once the software is released into the wild. It is recommended to implement a two-tier strategy for test automation as a means of mitigating the effects of this uncertainty.

The first tier could be enabled once code is committed to the shared repository. The goal of the tests that are included at this level is to provide a speedy validation of the changes that a developer is entering into the main branch of the project. These tests are incorporated for this purpose and are included at this level. In most cases, a single iteration of any of these tests, coupled with the sanity test and the till test, will not take longer than a few of minutes. It is common practise for the second-tier component to be more exhaustive than the first, and it typically operates during the night, when there is more time to test the modifications that have been made to the system. Regression tests are included in this phase to confirm that the modifications made have not broken or otherwise negatively damaged the functionality that already existed in the system. These changes could have been caused by a number of different factors.

6. Run Regular QA Technical Reviews

Formal technical reviews are a good tool to have in the software testing toolkit since they reveal any logical or functional flaws, which is especially valuable in the early stages of product development. A bug that causes a feature to behave incorrectly but does not cause the application to crash or terminate causes a logical error. On the other hand, functional errors happen when referential transparency is broken by poor exception handling.

Technical Reviews

Most of the time, these technical reviews happen in a formal setting, like a group meeting, where people with different roles make sure the software meets certain standards and requirements. These meetings are called formal technical reviews (FTR), and they are usually done on mature products where the market has already been segmented and the users who will be using the product are already clear. After an FTR, a review report is made that answers the following questions: what was reviewed, who did the reviewing, what was found during the review, and what decisions were made as a result.

FTRs are not uniform measurements; rather, they come in various sizes and with various methods, such as:

Review Meeting ‍

This is a formal review written by the creator of the product to acquaint the other reviewers with it. Release dates are discussed and modifications are considered.

Walkthrough ‍

A gathering of technical experts at which the source code of the product is investigated with the goal of locating bugs; the conference also includes evaluations of the product’s design and documentation procedures.

Inspection ‍

held to determine whether to expand the initial standard or to check for the presence of older bugs.

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7. Enact User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

In order to approximate and target the ideal user for the product, user personas are created. They are important for QA teams because they help them anticipate how a bug or logical mistake might be introduced into the interaction of these fictional characters with the product. However, software testing phase teams are still unable to foresee the full extent of unexpected behaviour patterns that actual users might exhibit, even when using the effective tool of a user persona.

Therefore, the inclusion of end users is crucial in the cycle of software testing phase. They are typically saved for the last stage of quality control testing a product. Being at this point in the testing process is a significant accomplishment that shows the application is almost ready for production. End users have the distinct ability to view an application or product from the outside-in because their perception of its features and responses is fresh.

There are 5 categories of UAT, including:

Contract Acceptance Testing ‍

Evaluates the software’s compliance with the terms of the contract.

Alpha and Beta Testing ‍

Both are being tested ahead of release. Beta testing frequently involves willing customers in their environment, whereas alpha testing is done early on.

Regulation Acceptance Testing ‍

examines the software to see if it complies with any legal requirements.

Black Box Testing ‍

There is no way to tell what’s inside a black box. Similarly, in this kind of test, the testers are aware of what an application ought to do, but they do not know how it ought to do it or how it ought to complete the task.

Production Readiness Testing ‍

As its name suggests, it evaluates the state of the software to determine whether or not it is prepared for use, taking into account the workflows that have been checked.

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8. Measure Code Quality.

The calibre of a piece of software and the calibre of its code are related. But it cannot be properly evaluated if it cannot be measured. The best way to raise QA quality as a result is to guarantee that its goals are quantifiable. In turn, this quantifiability enables the tracking, reviewing, and documentation of quality control metrics for the tested product. The only guidelines and general rules to abide by when evaluating the quality of code are common sense ones. There is a CISQ Software Quality Model that describes four essential aspects of software quality, namely security, performance efficiency, reliability, rate of delivery, and maintainability, so there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

Security ‍

The capacity of a system to safeguard information and guard against data breaches. This is gauged by the quantity of flaws found and the turnaround time for their correction.

Reliability ‍

This gauges how long a system can function properly without breaking down or experiencing downtime. It is measured by the number of errors or bugs that occur within a set period of time.

Maintainability ‍

The ease with which the application can be expanded, changed, or customized to meet new business needs. Since more voluminous code tends to increase complexity, the number of lines in an application serves as a proxy indicator of maintainability.

Performance Efficiency ‍

Load and stress testing is used to measure response time.

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9. Develop Requirements That Are Testable

The way that business or functional requirements are expressed in software testing phase determines whether or not those requirements can be tested. The behaviour of a software feature will be accurately described by a well-written requirement, making it possible to develop tests that determine whether the conditions of the requirement have been satisfied. A requirement must first and foremost be measurable in order to be testable, as was inferred from the previous section on evaluating code quality. Additionally, it must be written in a clear, concise, and unambiguous manner.

Ideal Methods to Writing Requirements

There are a number of ways to write tests that can account for a variety of potential outcomes, ranging from the more traditional requirements documents to the more flexible agile methods like the following:

Test-Driven development (TDD)

Requirements are written as unit tests in this developer testing mode. However, by collaborating with developers and using strategies like equivalence partitioning and boundary value analysis, testers can also create better tests.

Behavior-Driven Development (BDD)

Instead of using abstract terminology, BDD uses concrete examples and a syntax known as Gherkin.

User Stories ‍

This approach puts the user or customer first. They are written in the user-role, feature, and goal format, making them understandable to end users.

Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD)

This combines acceptance criteria with user stories to show whether the software application is performing as intended.

10. Understand Product Objectives in Order to Design Effective Test Strategies

Testers need to understand the product from a business standpoint as well as a technical one in order to effectively interrogate and test a system. When testers are only aware of the parameters of their tests, they frequently fail to distinguish between the forest and the trees. It takes more than just having a narrow mindset that is only concerned with technical functionality to successfully test software. Understanding how the entire product architecture works together to address business and customer needs through its various dependencies, components, data flow, and integration points is the mark of a good software tester.

Test Execution

Because they comprehend the application’s flow, they will be better able to identify the root cause of a problem or defect during test execution because of their global perspective and purpose perspective. Furthermore, knowing the underlying business goals will aid the tester in creating more thorough test plans that take into account all potential user interactions. This information will be helpful for other aspects of the testing regime, such as developing the test strategy and creating the test schedule, in addition to making risk identification easier.

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References

https://pflb.us/blog/software-testing-importance-sdlc/

https://www.clouddefense.ai/blog/10-best-practices-for-software-testing-projects