Software testing test case tutorials and videos

Best Practices in Test Case Design

Software Testing Magazine — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 16:53:04 +0000

Creating excellent test cases is an important part of checking software for the presence and absence of errors. Test cases are frequently used to direct QA engineers through particular steps, promoting the early detection and resolution of challenges in the software development life cycle. Effective test case design ensures that every corner is covered, which in turn guarantees that critical issues will not be neglected and assures the smooth operation of the project through the so-called testing that is performed. Some of the benefits of effective test case design include creating comprehensive test cases that can be used for efficient and repeatable testing. 1. Define Clear Objectives for Each Test Case Setting exact objectives for each test scenario allows the test scenarios to be focused, relevant, and traceable. Here’s how to create tests with a purpose in mind: Set Test Aim: Every test case must start with one clear objective in line with the testing strategy. It might verify whether all functions work correctly, which is the behavioral test. The correct error handling of the software for e-commerce, such as a gaming website for slots online, will directly impact the performance of the software, which is an example of a non-functional attribute that is being tested. The more precise the goals are set, the design of the test cases will be in the same direction as the quality goals. User Simulator: Often, bug-free test cases are like real-life scenarios that users face. In particular, consider the edge situation where the [...]

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Why Use Test Tools During Test Design

Software Testing Magazine — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 14:50:07 +0000

Test automation is an essential practice to manage quality in large software development projects. This article discusses the reasons why incorporating test tools during test design is an absolute necessity for ensuring high-quality software products and successful project outcomes. Author: Nataliia Syvynska, TestMatick, https://testmatick.com/ In today’s fast-paced and technologically driven world, software testing services have become an integral part of the software development life cycle. The success of any software product heavily relies on the quality of its testing procedures. As businesses strive to deliver robust and flawless software solutions, test design has emerged as a critical aspect of the testing process. In this context, the utilization of automated testing tools has gained significant traction, offering software testers and developers a plethora of benefits throughout the software testing journey. From enhancing efficiency and accuracy to streamlining complex testing scenarios, the integration of test tools has proven indispensable. Recently, the view of testing tools has begun to be reduced to just two components: performing templated tasks and helping with output. This approach however is fundamentally wrong because any tool is not just about testing output but non-trivial tasks that happen as the test is performed. In this article, we delve into the compelling reasons why incorporating test tools during test design is an absolute necessity for ensuring high-quality software products and successful project outcomes; as well as how to use any test tools to maximize its capabilities. In Test Design, Tools Should Be Used To: Receive finished test data; Clear information on [...]

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Comparing Test Cases and Acceptance Criteria

Software Testing Magazine — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 14:49:22 +0000

Test cases and acceptance criteria are two important aspects of test management. In this article, Ovidiu Donciu discusses the similarities and differences between test cases and acceptance criteria and suggests that we could merge them. Author: Ovidiu Donciu, CEO of QA Karma, https://www.qakarma.com/ Test cases A test case is a set of conditions, steps and actions performed on a system to determine if it satisfies all requirements, acceptance criteria and design under the given conditions and based on user expectations — Ovidiu Donciu A test case is usually a single step, or occasionally a sequence of steps, to test the correct behavior/functionality, features of an application. — Wikipedia A test case is a singular set of actions or instructions for a tester to perform that validates a specific aspect of a product or application functionality. — Applause Acceptance criteria Acceptance criteria (AC) are the conditions that a software product must meet to be accepted by a user, a customer, or other systems. They are unique for each user story and define the feature behaviour from the end-user’s perspective. — Altexsoft Acceptance Criteria are a set of statements, each with a clear pass/fail result, that specify both functional and non-functional requirements — LeadingAgile Acceptance criteria are the predefined requirements that must be met, taking all possible scenarios into account, to consider a user story to be finished. — KnowledgeHut Based on all the definitions above, there’s not a huge difference(if any) between test cases and acceptance criteria. They both seem to [...]

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Importance of Writing Test Matrices in the Testing Phase

Software Testing Magazine — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 17:15:15 +0000

In software development projects, the test cases are written based on the requirements. In this article, Sreerekha Bakaraju explains how software testers can use a test matrix approach to ensure the traceability from requirements to testing. Author: Sreerekha Bakaraju Requirement Analysis Understanding the requirements is crucial in software testing. The requirement phase comes before the starting of the test phase in the software development life cycle. Product’s requirements are detailed in test plans and test cases. Most often, the requirements and walkthroughs are done by the Business team. Test cases are written based on the software requirements. If the requirements are not clear, the test cases become incomplete. It would be beneficial to spend sufficient time and effort to clearly understand the requirements. Test Plans A well-planned test plan is crucial for software testing. Every activity of the testing phase is listed in the test plan. First and foremost, understanding the requirements is very important before writing the test plan. Test plan initiation starts from the requirements. Some of the items in the test plan are: list of the resources required for testing, timelines, procedures that are going to be used, the components that are targeted for testing in specific releases, and the required hardware and software. Writing a test plan needs a lot of experience in the industry and it also requires foresight into the product release plans and the product roadmap. To begin with, the test plan has to account for what is required to start the testing phase. Testing involves testing the [...]

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Choosing a Test Case Management Solution for JIRA

Software Testing Magazine — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:39:30 +0000

Atlassian JIRA is one of the most popular tool for Agile project management. Many add-ons exist for test case management with this tool. In this article, Vladimir Belorusets presents a set of requirements for an efficient test case management process in JIRA that should help you select the best solution for the software testing needs of your organization. Author: Vladimir Belorusets, PhD, Bluescape, https://www.bluescape.com/ Introduction JIRA is one of the most popular issue and project tracking framework for software teams. A framework defines a common structure that organizes software artifacts, data, and supporting libraries. Framework functionality can be altered and/or expanded by installing special modules called add-ons or plug-ins. These add-ons are designed in accordance with the framework architecture in order to re-use all framework benefits. Out of the box JIRA supports the following issue types for software projects: * Requirements (epics & stories for agile methodology) * Bugs * Tasks & sub-tasks Software testing represents an important part of the software development process. There are several test management add-ons available on the market that are integrated with JIRA to varying degrees. To help testing teams to select the right tool that fits their preferences and needs, I developed a set of requirements for the efficient test case management solution in JIRA. Initially, I presented these requirements along with my preferred plug-in synapseRT at Atlassian Summit 2014. Time has proved that this approach is practical and valuable. Since then, I have successfully implemented test management process at SafeNet (acquired by [...]

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Evaluating Test Cases Quality With Mutation Testing

Software Testing Magazine — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 14:38:43 +0000

How good are your test cases? Maybe they are good, or maybe you need to add some new ones. How to tell? You can measure things like code coverage to check if some parts of your code were not executed. Still, this does not tell you anything about the quality of your assertions and your software testing results. In the extreme case, a test suite with no assertions might still achieve 100% code coverage, although being of questionable value. Mutation testing is a technique that is used to automatically inject faults in your code, and then check if your test cases can “kill” those “mutants”. In this way, the quality and effectiveness of your assertions can be evaluated. This talk presents the benefits and challenges of mutation testing, and also shows how to use open source tools like PIT. Video producer: http://oredev.org/

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How Many Test Cases?

Software Testing Magazine — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 22:10:38 +0000

Can you use the number of test cases as a metric? In this blog post, James Christie discusses this topic and the usefulness of counting test cases. His point of view is that the number of test cases and their use as a metric of progress for the software testing effort are not meaningful. What is important is how the tests run are important to validate the software under test. You can have a lot of small test cases that give limited information and a complex test case which is difficult to run but provides valuable evidence that the application is running correctly. In his experience this is however sometimes difficult to explain to management who just want reports to “manage the stakeholders”. Whether the metrics are really meaningful to assess the quality of the software is less important. Read the complete blog post on http://clarotesting.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/but-how-many-test-cases/

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Evaluating Test Suites

Software Testing Magazine — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 11:45:40 +0000

Test adequacy criteria provide developers with guidance on how to populate software test suites. Current software testing methods do not address many of the fundamental characteristics of distributed systems, such as distribution topology, communication failure, and timing. Furthermore, they do not provide the engineer with a means to evaluate the relative effectiveness of different criteria nor the relative effectiveness of adequate test suites satisfying a given criterion. This article makes three contributions to the development and use of test adequacy criteria for distributed systems: 1) a testing method based on discrete-event simulations 2) a fault-based analysis technique for evaluating test suites and adequacy criteria 3) a series of case studies that validate the method and technique. The testing method uses a discrete-event simulation as an operational specification of a system in which the behavioral effects of distribution are explicitly represented. Adequacy criteria and test cases are then defined in terms of this simulation-based specification. The fault-based analysis involves mutation of the simulation-based specification to provide a foil against which test suites and the criteria that formed them can be evaluated.

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