Why Testing is so important in Software Development?
Software’s influence is greater in today’s society, which is moving toward a more digitally integrated culture. It contributes to higher living standards, increases business prospects, and advances a smart world. Software now plays an important part across all of the pathways of typical individuals’ daily lives, in addition to the industrial/commercial impact. All it takes is that the participant has access to digital devices/platforms.
Software is being used by businesses for promoting their brand, implementing marketing strategies, generating leads, nurturing existing customers, achieving customer base growth and other advantages.
The software has diverse applications; it is gradually penetrating different industries, including the healthcare industry, automotive industry, energy and utilities industry, smart cities, retail and CPG (consumer packaged goods) space. A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses Opportunity and Threats) analysis of the software industry prepared by one of the SWoT Frameworks, indicates that this is a high-growth industry that has been showcasing consistent revenue growth over the last decade.
What is Testing in Software Development?
Testing is an integral part of software development, which ensures the quality of the final product. With increasing competition in almost all fields, it has become essential to produce error-free and bug-less products. Testing ensures that bugs are fixed before they reach customers. It also helps developers recognize any problems early in the development cycle so corrections can be made.
Testing can be performed at different stages of development, but it is more effective when done in the early stages—prior to coding and later before release. Testing should not be viewed as a one-time process, but rather an ongoing activity throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC), with the number of tests increasing significantly during some stages. For example, the testing activity during the development stage is more intense than that of the maintenance stage.
Testing can be defined as a process to discover if a product or service does what it should, and does not do what it should not. Testing involves activities such as:
- Planning and designing tests;
- Implementing automated tests and Test-Driven Development (TDD);
- Debugging and bug fixing;
- Performing manual testing; and
- Writing test cases.
Testing can be divided into two broad categories:
1. Verification Testing: As the name signifies, it verifies that something actually works as intended for example checking if a GUI is responding correctly. This type of testing is based on requirement specifications and helps discover problems early in the SDLC rather than after final deployment, which can be very costly and time-consuming.
2. Validation Testing: It helps discover if something works as intended for example checking if a GUI is responding correctly to visual defects such as color blindness, low contrast, and other coding errors. This type of testing also verifies the business rules.
The Quality Assurance (QA) team typically performs verification testing. The development team typically performs validation testing to ensure that software meets functional requirements and customer expectations. Validation includes activities such as performance, security, usability, etc.
Top Reasons Why Software Testing Is Important
Some major reasons why software testing is important are as follows:
1. Testing helps ensure the quality of the product. Poorly tested products have a high tendency to fail in user environments, which can cost companies millions of dollars in revenue or remedial activities/maintenance.
2. It ensures that bugs are fixed before reaching customers.
3. It ensures a consistent user experience across different software versions and devices.
4. Quality testing helps improve product reliability, which makes customers happy and increases the overall Return On Investment (ROI) of a company’s IT investments.
5. While developing software it is important to be aware of the end users’ requirements, testing ensures that the product does not miss or compromise on any of the users’ requirements.
6. Testing helps improve overall product quality and provides a consistent customer experience, which is very important when enterprises are running mission-critical processes on their IT systems.
7. One software bug can cause major problems for both customers and companies alike, therefore testing becomes crucial to ensure that the product is free from bugs.
8. Testing helps software companies improve their brand image and helps attract more customers, which in turn helps increase company revenue.
Different Software Testing Modules
Testing takes place at every stage of the software development life cycle (SDLC), however, testing is more intense during the earlier stages. More tests are needed because there are fewer lines of code at that stage. The testing intensity gradually decreases as the product progresses through later stages in the SDLC.
There are different types of testing modules including integration testing, system testing, acceptance testing, load/performance testing, volume testing, security testing (penetration testing), regression testing, usability testing, compatibility/compatibility testing (such as the browser and operating system compatibility), localization (G11N) with country-specific requirements (e.g., time format and currency symbol), installation/deployment testing, recovery testing, failure testing (also known as fault tolerance), exploratory/alpha testing, and acceptance testing.
How Software Testing Differs from Quality Assurance (QA)
Software QA is the process of determining whether software or system meets all requirements and performs its intended functions. On the other hand, software testing involves running the software to determine whether it satisfies all requirements and performs its intended functions.
The QA team typically tests the end-user functionalities whereas the testing team (software testers) performs the technical tasks required to ensure that software meets all requirements and works as intended.
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