Before delving deep into the nuances of web testing, it is first important to understand what it exactly means. Web testing is the other name for software testing that focuses primarily on web applications. But why is it important? Imagine a website running into a technical error right after it goes live! The entire agenda of reaching out to prospective customers is lost here. Issues like broken content, 404 or for that matter security error are some of the common issues that website developers have to deal with.
Interestingly, the solution is very simple, only if you agree to believe into the benefits of web testing. Make a checklist and you are good to go if you have checked all the components of the list. Ideally, the checklist that we would be discussing here is applicable for all types of business requirements. It comprises:
- Usability Testing: The website is tested for user-friendliness, i.e, how easily can it be navigated by the users. In this testing, the application flow is tested so that a new user can easily understand the application. Fonts, grammatical errors, and spelling checks are done. Testers also look for alignment errors, space issues, formatting of the buttons, broken links, images, contents.
- Database Testing: A crucial part of testing, this includes testing the back end records, inserted through the web or desktop applications. Data displayed in the web application is matched with the data stored in the database. A qualified tester should understand the functional requirements, business logic, database design, and the application overflow. The tester should have an eye for detail and should be able to figure out the tables, store procedures, views, and cursors created.
- Functional Testing: It involves testing the features and the operational behavior of a product to ensure they correspond to a specific requirement. The goal of functional testing is to verify whether the specifications of the product tallies with the specifications mentioned in the development documentation.
- Compatibility Testing: As the name says it all, compatibility testing helps understand the performance of a website on different browsers. The website is tested for proper image display, fonts, and appearance on various browsers.
- Performance Testing: An essential part of website testing, this scenario also determines the websites success with the audience, which is governed by downloading speed, appearance, and ease of navigation.
- Security Testing: It is important that the website warns its developers about phishing, virus attack or malware on various servers. This is because the browser regularly downloads dangerous content every now and then. A test to check the efficiency in this case needs to be done.
- Regression test: This is probably the most important scenario in a website testing solution. It is done to check whether the existing website is working fine and as per the client requirement. It has to be ensured that any new feature introduced on the website is not tampering with the download or the operation time.Smokeand Sanity tests are conducted to ensure that nothing is broken.
- Exploratory tests: Tests are conducted on the website to check its reaction toward an unexpected user behavior on the page. The checks are random and do not follow any specific pattern to emulate the behavior of the users on the website.
More Information can be found QualiTest Website