Testing Matters : Both Software And Our Life
Tags: Software Testing, Life, Technology, Education, Learning

Today morning when I was checking my smart phone, I saw many features that I never tried. I thought I am not smart even though I have a smartphone. Then I thought let’s test my phone on what features and UI are available in my phone. I have changed many things and tried to know if it is working in a more smart way and it works.

Let’s think about our life. Also In real life, testing is our common practice and we all want to know if everything is working fine. We attempt various ways to find if it is up to the mark. Sometimes we even test our friends, partners, manager, colleagues and many more if they are available for us when we need them. Our boss tests us if we can work late in the office. Our friends test if we reply to them immediately. If you don’t find them up to you, you make some changes in your action, sense, behavior etc. You understand that either you need to change them or change yourself.

Similarly, this is the strategy we adopt during testing of software, application, websites etc. Nowadays we see various software, websites and mobile applications that we require for daily usage. A good website, application and software need to be properly tested as no software is 100 percent error free. A good developer always attempts many methods to understand if they have developed an error and bug free software and time to time they keep updating. A good smartphone user can notice as they regularly update their applications from the app store or play store.

There are various types of testing strategies, but in this story I would like to explain two testing methods: manual testing and automation.

If you are new, you would be interested to know what manual testing is. Manual testing is easy and can be done by a person who has an even basic understanding of technology. There are also some tools that may be used during testing. A person has to click and check if we have accurate results and behave as per specified requirement. Manual testing has many limitations and somehow it is covered in automated testing.

Automation words are easy to understand if something happens automatically without our much intervention. In testing, this process is done by a pre-programmed system and it executes the script. There are many tools that help us to complete tests. Every test method may vary and depend on the person how they execute. Automated testing takes less time compared to manual testing and we also don’t need to store their results like manual testing. It is also most reliable and robust. But we cannot always depend on only and we also need to test manually if anything is missing. In automation testing, a well written script is required.

Important Note: 1. We must understand a basic principle that needs to be implemented for all types of testing and we should have answers to questions like what, why, whom, how, where etc. 2. To know the quality, all the test process should be done by the third party so that they do not do any negligence either in client favour or developer. 3. This is very important to understand what we have to test and we should have a good understanding about that. 4. We must know the requirement and during the test, it should match as per actual requirement and specifications. All the tests should meet the customer requirements. 5. You have to always believe that software is not 100 percent error free even if you have attempted many testing activities and tools. 6. An Easy and fast way to test the software is to break it into small parts.

Now, after explaining manual and automation, we must understand two more functional and non functional testing. It also has many testing activities like unit testing, smoke testing, system testing, user acceptance testing etc. and need to understand in detail how it works.

So we have to be very smart and efficient during the testing but most important is it should be effective.

So now we know that testing is important for all of us. Let’s make sure to test all those that matter in our life. This could be our application, mobile, equipment, laptop, refrigerator, television, car, bike all. We should be a good user and we can know only when we use more, test more. Sometimes we just use it but we are not aware of many features this could have. As we have spent money on this we should be aware and should be more smart.