What is Functional Testing?

Functional Testing is probably the most widely used form of software testing in the Information Technology world today. The vast majority of software producing companies have tight budgets, tight deadlines and lots of competition. The main aim of this type of software testing is to answer the following question:

Does the software do what it was designed to do?

Software developments are nearly always driven by business requirements, as they form the reason why the software is being developed in the first place. Business requirements can be documented in several ways, either grouped under the one single banner of business requirements or separated into sections such as user requirements, functional requirements and system requirements etc. Functional Testing is typically planned to satisfy business requirements as a group or individually. Some requirements are not testable, which does not necessarily mean that there was a mistake, but simply means another form of testing will have to be used to satisfy the requirement. Functional requirements should always be testable however. It is common for company departments and project stakeholders alike to request a list of requirements and their associated test case results. This is why the importance of this type of software testing is ranked highly in the development life-cycle.

Requirements are created at the beginning of the software development life-cycle, so Functional Testing can be a consideration very early on. Questions like “How am I going to test this?” are valid at any stage, and so the earlier on it can be answered the better. Requirement reviews can be said to include Functional Testing as both an input and an output, such is the importance of this type of testing.

Functional Testing is based on the external behavior of the software under test, otherwise known as ‘black-box testing’, which means that no knowledge of the inner design of the code or logic is required. An example of a form of this type of software testing is ‘Security Testing’, which tests the functions relating to threats from malicious persons and viruses etc. Interoperability testing can also be considered to be a form of Functional Testing as the capability of the software product to interact with other specified components or systems is being tested.

What is Functional Testing?

Do we really need software testing?

For any company developing software, at some point pressure to reach the deadline in order to release the product on time will come into play. Additional pressure from project stakeholders, such as ‘Marketing’ will not want to delay the release date as significant effort and money may have already been spent on an expected release date.

Quite often, planned time to test the software (e.g. ascertain its quality – QA) will become reduced so as not to impact the release date. From a pure business perspective, this can be seen as a positive step as the product is reaching the intended customers on time. Careful consideration should be taken though as to the overall impact of a customer finding a ‘bug’ in the released product. Maybe the bug is buried deep within a very obscure functional area of the software product, and as the impact only results in a typo within a seldom-used report, the level of impact is very low. In this case, the effect on the business for this software company would probably be insignificant. But what if the bug resulted in the program crashing and losing data? Maybe this software product is used within an air traffic control system? As you can imagine, the impact of this type of bug could be incredibly high and may result in loss of life and destroying the entire company responsible. So basically, the level of risk of a bug being found (likelihood) and what is the effect of the bug (impact) prove to be critical in how much software testing is performed prior to a products release.

Due to the complexity of modern software it is impossible to ensure that software is bug-free…….it really is!

Imagine a simple form on a software application that was designed to accept one of ten specific values, in order to test this completely, you would need to create a test case for each and every permutation of the entries that could be entered by the user, for example:

10(inputs) to the 10(values)th power

10 to the 10th power

Result = 10,000,000,000 test cases

So, if you were the tester hired to perform the testing, and it only took you one second to perform each test case, it would take around 317 years to complete. Therefore, the test planning should take into consideration what is actually ‘achievable.’

Software testing (synonymous with the term Quality Assurance) itself can have many different purposes (quality assurance, validation, performance etc). This is a key decision when planning the QA /software testing, as not testing enough or testing in the wrong areas will inevitably result in missed bugs. The aim should be first ascertaining ‘why’ we are going to test and not simply ‘what’ we are going to test.

Software testing and or Quality Assurance is still a kind of art, mainly due to a limited understanding of the complexities of modern software. Recent years has seen the development of software testing certification such as ISTQB.  This is good news for the software industry as a whole, as the more experienced a software tester is then the level of quality of the software they are testing can only increase.

Software testing cannot ensure software is bug-free, but it CAN increase software quality.

If we aim for perfection, we may just achieve excellence!

Do we really need software testing?

Testing4Success.com’s Outsourced QA Service Featured on BBC Technology Program

Testing4Success.com was featured in a recently aired special technology program that focused on the growing trend of outsourcing software development and testing. The program which aired on BBC UK and BBC Canada news channels featured the leading companies in the field of outsourced software development and testing from around the globe.

“An ever-growing number of companies in the field of software development are electing to outsource their testing to dedicated QA services companies. Knowing that the testing is being performed by professionals, combined with the relative low cost, outsourcing is a totally viable option in today’s market.”

“A major headache for software development companies is delays in the project and the knock-on effect it has to the QA budget. No company wants to pay for testers while they wait for something to test. By outsourcing, a development company simply has to re-schedule and therefore sticking to the original QA budget.”

 

About Testing4Success.com

Testing4Success.com is based in Victoria, B.C. and is one of the leading QA providers in Canada and the United States. We have the expertise to ensure your software development can be released with total confidence. Whether you are an independent developer or a large company, we will provide an effective QA solution that matches your budget. Our QA team has expertise in Web Testing, Desktop App Testing, Mobile App Testing and QA Training.

Testing4Success.com’s Outsourced QA Service Featured on BBC Technology Program

Software Testing with Real or Virtual Machines?

An ongoing debate in the field of software testing is whether or not to rely on test results gathered from testing on virtual machines (VM’s). In the last ten years or so, virtual machines have revolutionized the way software testers work. Before, the virtual machine revolution, testers would often spend their day in front of racks of computers to perform their day-to-day testing. These computers would each have to be setup to specific configurations and this would ultimately result in a large amount of additional setup time to perform each test.

Virtual machines allow a tester to deploy a test environment within seconds, and most testers rely on these today. However, there is a risk that certain defects can only be detected on a real machine, and may not be seen in a ritualized environment. The current trend shows that testers are accepting this level of risk and relying on the virtual machines. There is still much debate as to whether or not this is an acceptable risk, and to be fair will depend on each projects requirements and expectations of the test results.

Software Testing with Real or Virtual Machines?

Canada"s No.1 QA / Software Testing Company

Testing4Success are proud to be at the forefront of QA and Software Testing in Canada and North America. With our flexible and professional approach to web testing, mobile app testing, desktop application testing and also QA training, our clients return to us time-after-time. What makes Testing4success stand-out from every other outsourced software testing company is our unique approach. Our team of top professionals were hand-picked by our president to ensure a consistently high level of QA. Our team listens intently to each client’s individual project requirement. From there we review every item to ensure the best personnel and test approaches are used. Our team then provides feedback during the testing, and work around-the-clock to ensure any deadlines are kept.

Visit our site today to see our extensive range of outsourced software testing services on offer. Our state-of-the-art test lab is located at our headquarters in Victoria, Canada. From our lab, we can offer web testing, mobile app testing, desktop application testing. Our lab includes the latest hardware and software systems to replicate virtually any environment imaginable.

We also have our own range of software testing certification training courses. Our courses were created by our own training instructor and have become one of the world’s best selling range of distance-learning training courses. From ISTQB to MATA (Mobile App Testing Associate), we have training courses to suit any level and budget.

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Canada"s No.1 QA / Software Testing Company