What is Software Testing?

Software testing is an important process in the software development

lifecycle. It involves verifying and validating that a software
application is free of bugs, meets the technical requirements set by
its design and development, and satisfies user requirements efficiently
and effectively.
This process ensures that the application can handle all exceptional and
boundary cases, providing a robust and reliable user experience. By
systematically identifying and fixing issues, software testing helps
deliver high-quality software that performs as expected in various
scenarios.
The main goal of software testing is to find bugs as early as possible
and fix bugs and make sure that the software is bug-free.
Table of Content
 What is Software Testing?
 Different Types Of Software Testing
 Different Types of Software Testing Techniques
 Different Levels of Software Testing
 Best Practices for Software Testing
 Benefits of Software Testing
 Conclusion
The process of software testing aims not only at finding faults in the
existing software but also at finding measures to improve the software
in terms of efficiency, accuracy, and usability. The article focuses on
discussing Software Testing in detail.
What is Software Testing?
Software Testing is a method to assess the functionality of the software
program. The process checks whether the actual software matches the
expected requirements and ensures the software is bug-free. The
purpose of software testing is to identify the errors, faults, or missing
requirements in contrast to actual requirements. It mainly aims at
measuring the specification, functionality, and performance of a
software program or application.
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Software testing can be divided into two steps
1. Verification: It refers to the set of tasks that ensure that the
software correctly implements a specific function. It means “Are we
building the product right?”.
2. Validation: It refers to a different set of tasks that ensure that the
software that has been built is traceable to customer
requirements. It means “Are we building the right product?”.
Importance of Software Testing
 Defects can be identified early: Software testing is important
because if there are any bugs they can be identified early and can be
fixed before the delivery of the software.
 Improves quality of software: Software Testing uncovers the defects
in the software, and fixing them improves the quality of the
software.
 Increased customer satisfaction: Software testing ensures reliability,
security, and high performance which results in saving time, costs,
and customer satisfaction.
 Helps with scalability: Software testing type non-functional testing
helps to identify the scalability issues and the point where an
application might stop working.
 Saves time and money: After the application is launched it will be
very difficult to trace and resolve the issues, as performing this
activity will incur more costs and time. Thus, it is better to conduct
software testing at regular intervals during software development.
Need for Software Testing
Software bugs can cause potential monetary and human loss. There are
many examples in history that clearly depicts that without the testing
phase in software development lot of damage was incurred. Below are
some examples:
 1985: Canada’s Therac-25 radiation therapy malfunctioned due to a
software bug and resulted in lethal radiation doses to patients
leaving 3 injured and 3 people dead.
 1994: China Airlines Airbus A300 crashed due to a software bug
killing 264 people.
 1996: A software bug caused U.S. bank accounts of 823 customers to
be credited with 920 million US dollars.
 1999: A software bug caused the failure of a $1.2 billion military
satellite launch.
 2015: A software bug in fighter plan F-35 resulted in making it
unable to detect targets correctly.
 2015: Bloomberg terminal in London crashed due to a software bug
affecting 300,000 traders on the financial market and forcing the
government to postpone the 3bn pound debt sale.
 Starbucks was forced to close more than 60% of its outlet in the U.S.
and Canada due to a software failure in its POS system.
 Nissan cars were forced to recall 1 million cars from the market due
to a software failure in the car’s airbag sensory detectors.

Different Types Of Software Testing

Explore diverse software testing methods
including manual and automated testing for improved quality
assurance. Enhance software reliability and performance through
functional and non-functional testing, ensuring user satisfaction. Learn
about the significance of various testing approaches for robust software
development.
Types Of Software Testing

Software Testing can be broadly classified into 3 types:

1. Functional testing: It is a type of software testing that validates the
software systems against the functional requirements. It is
performed to check whether the application is working as per the
software’s functional requirements or not. Various types of
functional testing are Unit testing, Integration testing, System
testing, Smoke testing, and so on.
2. Non-functional testing: It is a type of software testing that checks
the application for non-functional requirements like performance,
scalability, portability, stress, etc. Various types of non-functional
testing are Performance testing, Stress testing, Usability Testing, and
so on.
3. Maintenance testing: It is the process of changing, modifying, and
updating the software to keep up with the customer’s needs. It
involves regression testing that verifies that recent changes to the
 code have not adversely affected other previously working parts of
the software.
Apart from the above classification software testing can be further
divided into 2 more ways of testing:
1. Manual testing: It includes testing software manually, i.e., without
using any automation tool or script. In this type, the tester takes
over the role of an end-user and tests the software to identify any
unexpected behavior or bug. There are different stages for manual
testing such as unit testing, integration testing, system testing, and
user acceptance testing. Testers use test plans, test cases, or test
scenarios to test software to ensure the completeness of testing.
Manual testing also includes exploratory testing, as testers explore
the software to identify errors in it.
2. Automation testing: It is also known as Test Automation, is when the
tester writes scripts and uses another software to test the product.
This process involves the automation of a manual process.
Automation Testing is used to re-run the test scenarios quickly and
repeatedly, that were performed manually in manual testing.
Apart from Regression testing, Automation testing is also used to test
the application from a load, performance, and stress point of view. It
increases the test coverage, improves accuracy, and saves time and
money when compared to manual testing.
Different Types of Software Testing Techniques
Software testing techniques can be majorly classified into two
categories:
1. Black box Testing: Testing in which the tester doesn’t have access to
the source code of the software and is conducted at the software
interface without any concern with the internal logical structure of
the software known as black-box testing.
2. White box Testing: Testing in which the tester is aware of the
internal workings of the product, has access to its source code, and is
conducted by making sure that all internal operations are performed
according to the specifications is known as white box testing.
3. Grey Box Testing: Testing in which the testers should have
knowledge of implementation, however, they need not be experts.
S No. Black Box Testing White Box Testing

Internal workings of Knowledge of the

1 an application are not internal workings is a
required. must.

Also known as closed

Also known as clear
2 box/data-driven
box/structural testing.
testing.

Normally done by
End users, testers,
3 testers and
and developers.
developers.

This can only be done Data domains and

4 by a trial and error internal boundaries
method. can be better tested.

Different Levels of Software Testing

Software level testing can be majorly classified into 4 levels:
1. Unit testing: It a level of the software testing process where
individual units/components of a software/system are tested. The
purpose is to validate that each unit of the software performs as
designed.
2. Integration testing: It is a level of the software testing process where
individual units are combined and tested as a group. The purpose of
this level of testing is to expose faults in the interaction between
integrated units.
3. System testing: It is a level of the software testing process where a
complete, integrated system/software is tested. The purpose of this
test is to evaluate the system’s compliance with the specified
requirements.
4. Acceptance testing: It is a level of the software testing process
where a system is tested for acceptability. The purpose of this test is
 to evaluate the system’s compliance with the business requirements
and assess whether it is acceptable for delivery.

Best Practices for Software Testing

Below are some of the best practices for software testing:
 Continuous testing: Project teams test each build as it becomes
available thus it enables software to be validated in real
environments earlier in the development cycle, reducing risks and
improving the functionality and design.
 Involve users: It is very important for the developers to involve users
in the process and open-ended questions about the functionality
required in the application. This will help to develop and test the
software from the customer’s perspective.
 Divide tests into smaller parts: Dividing tests into smaller fractions
save time and other resources in environments where frequent
testing needs to be conducted. This also helps teams to make better
analyses of the tests and the test results.
 Metrics and Reporting: Reporting enables the team members to
share goals and test results. Advanced tools integrate the project
metrics and present an integrated report in the dashboard that can
be easily reviewed by the team members to see the overall health of
the project.
 Don’t skip regression testing: Regression testing is one of the most
important steps as it encourages the validation of the application.
Thus, it should not be skipped.
 Programmers should avoid writing tests: Test cases are usually
written before the start of the coding phase so it is considered a best
practice for programmers to avoid writing test cases as they can be
biased towards their code and the application.
 Service virtualization: Service virtualization simulates the systems
and services that are not yet developed or are missing. Thus,
enabling teams to reduce dependency and start the testing process
sooner. They can modify, and reuse the configuration to test
different scenarios without having to alter the original environment.

Benefits of Software Testing

  Product quality: Testing ensures the delivery of a high-quality
product as the errors are discovered and fixed early in the
development cycle.
 Customer satisfaction: Software testing aims to detect the errors or
vulnerabilities in the software early in the development phase so
that the detected bugs can be fixed before the delivery of the
product. Usability testing is a type of software testing that checks the
application for how easily usable it is for the users to use the
application.
 Cost-effective: Testing any project on time helps to save money and
time for the long term. If the bugs are caught in the early phases of
software testing, it costs less to fix those errors.
 Security: Security testing is a type of software testing that is focused
on testing the application for security vulnerabilities from internal or
external sources.

Conclusion
Software testing ensures that software works properly, meets user
needs, and is free of problems. It helps find and fix issues early, making
sure the final product is reliable and meets quality standards. By testing
regularly and involving users, software teams can make better products
that save time and money.

Goals of Software Testing


The main goal of software testing is to find bugs as early as possible and
fix bugs and make sure that the software is bug-free.

Important Goals of Software Testing:

 Detecting bugs as soon as feasible in any situation.

 Avoiding errors in a project’s and product’s final versions.
 Inspect to see whether the customer requirements criterion has
been satisfied.
 Last but not least, the primary purpose of testing is to gauge the
project and product level of quality.
The goals of software testing may be classified into three major
categories as follows:
1. Immediate Goals
2. Long-term Goals
3. Post-Implementation Goals

1. Immediate Goals: These objectives are the direct outcomes of

testing. These objectives may be set at any time during the SDLC
process. Some of these are covered in detail below:
 Bug Discovery: This is the immediate goal of software testing to find
errors at any stage of software development. The number of bugs is
discovered in the early stage of testing. The primary purpose of
software testing is to detect flaws at any step of the development
process. The higher the number of issues detected at an early stage,
the higher the software testing success rate.

 Bug Prevention: This is the immediate action of bug discovery, that

occurs as a result of bug discovery. Everyone in the software
development team learns how to code from the behavior and
 analysis of issues detected, ensuring that bugs are not duplicated in
subsequent phases or future projects.
2. Long-Term Goals: These objectives have an impact on product
quality in the long run after one cycle of the SDLC is completed. Some
of these are covered in detail below:
 Quality: This goal enhances the quality of the software product.
Because software is also a product, the user’s priority is its quality.
Superior quality is ensured by thorough testing. Correctness,
integrity, efficiency, and reliability are all aspects that influence
quality. To attain quality, you must achieve all of the above-
mentioned quality characteristics.
 Customer Satisfaction: This goal verifies the customer’s satisfaction
with a developed software product. The primary purpose of software
testing, from the user’s standpoint, is customer satisfaction. Testing
should be extensive and thorough if we want the client and
customer to be happy with the software product.
 Reliability: It is a matter of confidence that the software will not fail.
In short, reliability means gaining the confidence of the customers by
providing them with a quality product.
 Risk Management: Risk is the probability of occurrence of uncertain
events in the organization and the potential loss that could result in
negative consequences. Risk management must be done to reduce
the failure of the product and to manage risk in different situations.
3. Post-Implemented Goals: After the product is released, these
objectives become critical. Some of these are covered in detail below:
 Reduce Maintenance Cost: Post-released errors are costlier to fix
and difficult to identify. Because effective software does not wear
out, the maintenance cost of any software product is not the same
as the physical cost. The failure of a software product due to faults is
the only expense of maintenance. Because they are difficult to
discover, post-release mistakes always cost more to rectify. As a
result, if testing is done thoroughly and effectively, the risk of failure
is lowered, and maintenance costs are reduced as a result.
 Improved Software Testing Process: These goals improve the testing
process for future use or software projects. These goals are known
as post-implementation goals. A project’s testing procedure may not
 be completely successful, and there may be room for improvement.
As a result, the bug history and post-implementation results can be
evaluated to identify stumbling blocks in the current testing process
that can be avoided in future projects.
Conclusion: As a way to wrap up, I’d want to emphasize that a tester
should be more than simply a tester because the success of a project
depends on the tester’s knowledge, insight, communication, confidence,
and efforts. Testers should thus comprehend the wider picture in terms
of a product’s quality rather than concentrating just on discovering
flaws.

Software Testing – Bug vs Defect vs Error vs Fault vs Failure


Software Testing defines a set of procedures and methods that check
whether the actual software product matches with expected
requirements, thereby ensuring that the product is Defect free. There
are a set of procedures that needs to be in mind while testing the
software manually or by using automated procedures. The main
purpose of software testing is to identify errors, deficiencies, or missing
requirements with respect to actual requirements. Software Testing is
Important because if there are any bugs or errors in the software, they
can be identified early and can be solved before the delivery of the
software product. The article focuses on discussing the difference
between bug, defect, error, fault, and failure.
What is a Bug?
A bug refers to defects which means that the software product or the
application is not working as per the adhered requirements set. When
we have any type of logical error, it causes our code to break, which
results in a bug. It is now that the Automation/ Manual Test Engineers
describe this situation as a bug.
 A bug once detected can be reproduced with the help of standard
bug-reporting templates.
 Major bugs are treated as prioritized and urgent especially when
there is a risk of user dissatisfaction.
 The most common type of bug is a crash.
 Typos are also bugs that seem tiny but are capable of creating
disastrous results.
What is a Defect?
A defect refers to a situation when the application is not working as per
the requirement and the actual and expected result of the application
or software are not in sync with each other.
 The defect is an issue in application coding that can affect the whole
program.
 It represents the efficiency and inability of the application to meet
the criteria and prevent the software from performing the desired
work.
 The defect can arise when a developer makes major or minor
mistakes during the development phase.
What is an Error?
Error is a situation that happens when the Development team or the
developer fails to understand a requirement definition and hence that
misunderstanding gets translated into buggy code. This situation is
referred to as an Error and is mainly a term coined by the developers.
 Errors are generated due to wrong logic, syntax, or loop that can
impact the end-user experience.
 It is calculated by differentiating between the expected results and
the actual results.
 It raises due to several reasons like design issues, coding issues, or
system specification issues and leads to issues in the application.
What is a Fault?
Sometimes due to certain factors such as Lack of resources or not
following proper steps Fault occurs in software which means that the
logic was not incorporated to handle the errors in the application. This
is an undesirable situation, but it mainly happens due to invalid
documented steps or a lack of data definitions.
 It is an unintended behavior by an application program.
 It causes a warning in the program.
 If a fault is left untreated it may lead to failure in the working of the
deployed code.
 A minor fault in some cases may lead to high-end error.
 There are several ways to prevent faults like adopting programming
techniques, development methodologies, peer review, and code
analysis.
What is a Failure?
Failure is the accumulation of several defects that ultimately lead to
Software failure and results in the loss of information in critical
modules thereby making the system unresponsive. Generally, such
situations happen very rarely because before releasing a product all
possible scenarios and test cases for the code are simulated. Failure is
detected by end-users once they face a particular issue in the software.
 Failure can happen due to human errors or can also be caused
intentionally in the system by an individual.
 It is a term that comes after the production stage of the software.
 It can be identified in the application when the defective part is
executed.
A simple diagram depicting Bug vs Defect vs Fault vs Failure:

Bug vs Defect vs Error vs Fault vs Failure

Some of the vital differences between bug, defect, fault, error, and
failure are listed in the below table:

Basis Bug Defect Fault Error Failure

A bug A Defect is A Fault is An Error is a Failure is

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