Information About Application Testing Explored In Basic Terms

Application testing, or as it is sometimes referred to, application de-risking is basically the process whereby new applications or software are tested to check their functionality and workability prior to being introduced into the marketplace.

When carrying out this application testing, as well as penetration testing, one should confirm your objectives up- front and ensure that they are in fact quantifiable. Then you need to prioritise your main objectives. Important questions like; ‘Are we looking at an absolutely perfect product or is time –to-market paramount.’

Then make sure that everyone on the team knows their specific role. Remember to tailor the testing process around the strengths and weaknesses of your particular team.

Soon after the testing starts it is usual for numerous small bugs, defects and other issues will rear their heads. All of this new information has to be organised and stored ready for extraction by the technical side of the team.

I would recommend using a separate web server, database server, and application server if applicable. By doing this you will ensure that you have a separate test environment that can’t be effected by the development and production environment.

Now you need to look at usability. This is where you will check out the application effects a user’s experience. Things such as; are the available actions obvious to the user? Is the application remaining consistent from page to page – including things such as colour, typeface, borders and such. Is it easy to navigate around the app?

Unit checking then needs to be carried out. This is when we drill down into the application, focusing on the small units of functionality. Such as, has all of the necessary info carried through to the checkout cart when the submit button has been pressed.

Finally we would need to load test the application. Here you would attempt to forecast the traffic usage and then simulate the traffic load on the application to see if it is able to handle it.

Remember – Application testing can be a completely overwhelming task if you don’t break it down, prioritise and delegate enough work to your team.