Software Testing is that part of the entire software development life cycle which can never be compromised with. While developing an application a developer may be interested in testing the same in different environments and under different conditions. Testing generally involves creating test cases, preparing test strategies etc.
The pace at which the software industries are gaining momentum, it becomes a necessity to keep pace with the latest trends in 'information technology'. Quality assurance becomes the foremost criteria to ensure that a product to be delivered meets all the technical as well as business objectives.
There are primarily five essentials of software testing that are imperative to the process of software testing.
Test Strategy -Planning a strategy is an essential component in the process of attaining a successful result. One needs to take into account the possible number of risks involved, degree of accuracy of test results etc. A test strategy thus helps to uncover the facts like which type of testing best suits our requirements, the sequence in which the tests are to be performed etc. Basically, a test strategy helps to sort our tasks in a wise manner and that results in less wastage of time and efforts.
Testing Plan -A test plan is a layout of how a project's testing activities are to be carried out. It is about classifying as to who will be assigned which task, in which order the tasks shall begin, the optimum time allocated to each task etc. A test plan is exercised after the test strategy is in place.
Test Cases -Test cases are the set of conditions that needs to be checked to fulfill a criteria. Test cases are generally prepared followed by the test strategy. A test case or test script is intended to check if the software functions as per the given set of requirements. A test case should be robust enough in order to ascertain that our expected results are delivered. A good test case also brings out the defects in the system.
Test Data -Data is crucial. Test data is simply the input values to be passed to the system under test. For instance, our test data can be customer's phone number, customer's address, postal address etc.
Test Environment -The environment here refers to the platform used for testing an application. The environment could be the operating system used, the automation tool used or servers/networks.
Conclusion:
Software Testing is essentially a type of inspection wherein an application under test is analysed from every dimension to ensure delivery of a quality product. A thoughtful planning to carry out testing helps to ease the task of finding defects and also takes less time to conduct the testing process as we have a complete set of test strategies and relevant details with us.