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Software Test Design
Software Test Design

Software Test Design: Write comprehensive test plans to uncover critical bugs in web, desktop, and mobile apps

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Software Test Design

Making the Most of Exploratory Testing

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

This chapter introduces exploratory testing: manually trying out a new feature to get rapid feedback on its behavior. We’ll describe exploratory testing in detail, consider its strengths and weaknesses, and when you should perform it in a project.

We’ll look at the prerequisites you need to begin exploratory testing and the approaches you should take. This testing can be a miniature version of the complete test plan, taking a customer’s point of view, and using your naivety about how the feature works to identify confusing areas.

Exploratory testing should be used as part of a larger test strategy but can be run in isolation when time is short. We’ll finish by looking at what you should check when performing this testing, and the importance of curiosity, both here and throughout the testing process.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • What is exploratory testing?
  • Advantages, disadvantages, and alternatives
  • Understanding when testing should begin
  • Understanding the test activities
  • The spiral model of test improvement
  • Performing the first test
  • Mapping out new features
  • Using your naivety while testing
  • Running complete exploratory testing
  • Using exploratory testing by necessity
  • Checking exploratory test results
  • Using curiosity in testing

What is exploratory testing?

Exploratory testing is a vital tool in your armory. It involves you using a new feature in an ad hoc, unstructured way to quickly find issues and understand its workings. It is typically used early in the test cycle to achieve three main goals: to let you understand the feature you are testing, to discover any tools or knowledge you need, and to find blocking bugs that may delay the testing later on.

In exploratory testing, the test design, implementation, and interpretation are conducted simultaneously. This is also known as ad hoc testing, which has been frowned upon due to its unstructured format. However, it is a valuable stage in a project if deployed alongside other testing techniques. In a large project, it can be used early on to help plan more comprehensive tests, or if deadlines are tight, exploratory testing might be the only testing there’s time for.

In an ideal cycle, the team will plan both the feature and its testing at the start of development. In that case, exploratory testing enhances the test plans that already exist. In other development teams, testers are involved later in the project and may only plan the testing in earnest once the first version is already running. In both cases, exploratory testing is a necessary step for you to see a new feature working in practice so that you can write detailed test plans with the exact behavior in mind.

Exploratory testing must be performed manually so that you can get your hands on the new feature and see what inputs and outputs are available. Other parts of testing can be run manually or with automation, but exploratory testing must be manual because the main aim isn’t to find bugs but to understand the feature. Based on that understanding, you can plan further testing.

Not everyone can perform exploratory testing. In particular, it needs input from someone other than the developer who worked on the code. The developer should ensure the feature is working for them, but exploratory testing shows whether it can work in another environment for another engineer. That is the second goal of exploratory testing: to find issues significant enough to block further tests.

If the new feature doesn’t run in the test environment, if a page throws an error, or parts of the functionality aren’t available, that will block testing of those whole areas. Exploratory testing can quickly find those issues so that they can be fixed early in the development cycle and not cause delays later on.

First, we’ll consider the advantages and disadvantages of exploratory testing, along with alternative approaches that perform similar roles.

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Key benefits

  • Cover all key forms of testing for modern applications systematically
  • Understand anti-patterns and pitfalls in system design with the help of practical examples
  • Learn the strengths and weaknesses of different forms of testing and how to combine them effectively

Description

Software Test Design details best practices for testing software applications and writing comprehensive test plans. Written by an expert with over twenty years of experience in the high-tech industry, this guide will provide you with training and practical examples to improve your testing skills. Thorough testing requires a thorough understanding of the functionality under test, informed by exploratory testing and described by a detailed functional specification. This book is divided into three sections, the first of which will describe how best to complete those tasks to start testing from a solid foundation. Armed with the feature specification, functional testing verifies the visible behavior of features by identifying equivalence partitions, boundary values, and other key test conditions. This section explores techniques such as black- and white-box testing, trying error cases, finding security weaknesses, improving the user experience, and how to maintain your product in the long term. The final section describes how best to test the limits of your application. How does it behave under failure conditions and can it recover? What is the maximum load it can sustain? And how does it respond when overloaded? By the end of this book, you will know how to write detailed test plans to improve the quality of your software applications.

Who is this book for?

This book is for anyone testing software projects for mobile, web, or desktop applications. That includes Dedicated QA engineers managing software quality, Test and test automation engineers writing formal test plans, Test and QA managers running teams responsible for testing, Product owners responsible for product delivery, and Developers who want to improve the testing of their code.

What you will learn

  • Understand how to investigate new features using exploratory testing
  • Discover how to write clear, detailed feature specifi cations
  • Explore systematic test techniques such as equivalence partitioning
  • Understand the strengths and weaknesses of black- and white-box testing
  • Recognize the importance of security, usability, and maintainability testing
  • Verify application resilience by running destructive tests
  • Run load and stress tests to measure system performance

Product Details

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Publication date : Dec 02, 2022
Length: 426 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781804614730
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Product Details

Publication date : Dec 02, 2022
Length: 426 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781804614730
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Table of Contents

19 Chapters
Part 1 – Preparing to Test Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 1: Making the Most of Exploratory Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 2: Writing Great Feature Specifications Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 3: How to Run Successful Specification Reviews Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 4: Test Types, Cases, and Environments Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Part 2 – Functional Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 5: Black-Box Functional Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 6: White-Box Functional Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 7: Testing of Error Cases Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 8: User Experience Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 9: Security Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 10: Maintainability Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Part 3 – Non-Functional Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 11: Destructive Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 12: Load Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 13: Stress Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Conclusion Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Jr Mar 26, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Nice book covering functional testing, integration testing and system testing, with lots of real hands-on examples and practical approaches.Although the book doesn’t include code, it gives an overview of different types of testing and possible failure cases. It helped me to write test plans from the earliest stages and throughout projects.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
rahsaan m. wiggins Mar 27, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Software Test Design by Simon Amey: This book is a must have for anyone thinking of becoming a Software Test Engineer or a seasoned veteran looking for a go-to reference guide. Amey, provides in-depth and real-world analysis on every aspect of what a Software Engineer does, analysis and explanation of the tools used, and how to use those tools to create effective test cases. If you are looking for a book on software test design look no further this is it!!!!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
arsalan Feb 26, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
The book provides a comprehensive guide to software testing and will provide you with training and practical examples to improve your testing skills.The book covers various topics related to software testing, including Test Types, Cases, and Environments. It also provides an overview of different testing techniques such as black box testing, white box testing, and exploratory testing. The authors have included numerous examples and exercises to help readers understand the concepts better.One of the strengths of the book is its organization and structure. It is divided into easily digestible chapters and sections, making it easy for readers to navigate and find relevant information. The author has explained system design with the help of practical examples in software testing.Overall, "Software Test Design: is a useful resource for those interested in software testing. It provides a comprehensive overview of software testing concepts and techniques and is well-organized and easy to navigate.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
K. Jackvony Mar 21, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
"Software Test Design" is a very well-written, well-organized book, and one that I am sure I will refer back to time and time again throughout my career. The author covers areas not always covered by other books, including making sure that you have good software specifications, and reading through the code to create white-box testing. Important test areas like performance, usability, and security testing are discussed at length as well. The author sprinkles in real-world stories throughout the chapters, which helps to underscore his points. Anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed when faced with a new application to test, or anyone who feels like they're always missing something when they prepare for a software release will benefit from this book!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Jon Mar 12, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Very comprehensive book on how to test software. From at the top level how to define software specifications and test plans to the details on testing different sorts components, there's lots of good advice and real world examples. I've been in the software industry 20 years and there's a lot here that I recognise. Too often testing is not given the priority it should be compared to development and the result is software that fails for the customers. Who should read this? This is a book not just for test engineers; I would also encourage software developers and managers to read it to encourage thinking about testing throughout the development lifecycle.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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