The importance of Quality Assurance (QA) testing cannot be ignored before product launch. Would you believe me if I said that without conducting proper testing of an app, there is a 90 percent chance that the app will fail?
The purpose of software testing is to give the stakeholders information about the quality of their product. It also ensures that the functional requirements are met.
There are many testing techniques used by software testers to test an app’s functionality and performance. In this article, I’ll discuss Functional testing, its importance, and the tools available to automate this testing.
What Is Functional Testing?
Before the development of an app, user requirements are specified by the customer in a document known as a requirement specification document. Functional Testing is a type of software testing where the application developed is tested against the requirement specification to ensure that all the functional requirements specified are actually met.
An application’s functionality is cross-checked with the requirement specification in order to satisfy user requirements. This is the top priority of any software engineering firm and compromise can’t be made on that.
The following are the steps involved in functional testing:
- Identify Test Input
- Determine Output Based on Function’s Specification
- Execute the Test Cases
- Compare actual and expected outputs
The test cases are made before implementing functional testing. A development company can provide test cases in a document form to the user so that the user can see the functionality of the application himself. A user can also provide the test cases to the company for better satisfaction. The ultimate goal for testers is that the actual output of the functions conforms to the expected output of the functions.
Functional Testing Types
Functional Testing has many types including:
Unit Testing
In Unit testing, every function is tested in order to verify the functionality of application functions.
Smoke Testing
Smoke testing is a Build Verification Testing. This testing type verifies every build as soon as it is released. This increases the stability of every build.
Sanity Testing
This testing is quite similar to Smoke Testing but it is conducted at a deeper level. This testing type helps a lot in verifying the big and important functionalities of the application.
User Acceptance Testing
In this testing, we select a pool of users who actually test the application and then submit a report on that. This testing is usually done just before the launch of the application.
Regression Testing
This testing is used to verify that the code runs fine after some changes have been made to it. After a code is changed, there is usually a great probability that the code may now have bugs, so this testing helps in eliminating that chance.
Integration Testing
After integrating multiple parts or modules of an application, this testing is performed to verify the working of the app after its integration.
Beta/Usability Testing
This testing is similar to UAT but the user is given the proper environment for testing the application.
The type of functional testing to be used is decided on the basis of the type of application.
Functional Testing Example
For example, let’s consider a login page that allows users to enter a user ID and password. In order to verify the functionality of the page, we make both valid and invalid entries. The application should allow valid entries and prohibit invalid entries in order to ace the test.
The test cases should include all the possibilities to validate the functionality. When a user ID is entered, we have to ensure that the correct format is followed, for example, the ID can’t start with the alphabet or the ID has to be of a fixed length. Similarly, we also test the password section, for example, the password cannot be of length less than 6 characters or the password can’t be left blank.
After trying all the possibilities, it is made sure that the functional requirements are met.
Functional Testing Tools
Choosing the right automated or manual testing tool is an essential task. User-friendly testing tools are also available nowadays that don’t require any programming skills to operate. Some of the great functional testing tools available are:
Selenium
This is a famous open-source testing tool available for free. Users can choose from a variety of languages like C#, Java, PHP, Python, etc. to write test scripts.
Test IO
This is a great testing tool to check that your app can run on all platforms without any trouble or errors. It provides real-world conditions and all sorts of platforms like mobile, web, etc. to ensure that your app is bug-free.
Sahi
This tool has both free and paid versions. It is a great automation testing tool used mainly in the agile environment. It supports recording and playback scripting which makes testing a lot easier.
Watir
Web Application Testing In Ruby (Watir) comes in three packages: Watir classic, Watir WebDriver, and Watir spec. Testing is very easy to maintain and understand with the help of this tool. All sorts of web applications are supported by this tool.
TestingWhiz
This automated testing tool allows code-less scripting. This is done by the record & playback feature. This tool can also be integrated with tracking and management tools.
HPE Unified Functional Testing
This is another great automated testing tool that uses Visual Basic for scripting test cases.
Ranorex
Ranorex Studio is another automated testing tool that provides testing facilities for web, desktop, and mobile apps. It also has a record & playback facility and also has GUI recognition.
Functional Test Cases
Test cases are basically a series of inputs along with specific conditions that ensure the working of the program. QA Engineers spend a great amount of time building these test cases. In Functional Testing, these test cases are used to ensure all the functions of an application are working perfectly fine.
Test cases usually comprise the following:
- Title of test case
- Description of test case
- Lines of code to execute
- Expected result & actual result
- Success/Failure of test case
When writing test cases, you should imagine yourself as the user of the application because they are the main stakeholders. Putting yourself in their position will give you better ideas and success.
Test cases play a vital role in the testing of an application after it has been developed. They lead to the making of quality products.
New versions of browsers, operating systems, etc. come out every year. Compatibility issues might arise due to these new versions and that is why test cases should be updated at the same pace as well.
Having up-to-date test cases can help in avoiding a lot of problems especially the compatibility issues faced later. It is even better if you predict these issues earlier and take action accordingly.
Automated Functional Testing
We now know what functional testing is. We can automate this testing in order to improve the overall efficiency of the test cases and also to save the amount of time consumed in running test cases manually.
Business companies that can invest in automating their testing should actually do it since the outcome will be much greater than you can expect. Automation will not only save time and costs of the testing but will also expand the test coverage and improve the stability of the app.
In order to successfully automate your testing, you should ensure the following:
Have Complete Knowledge Of Your Application
This is a very important step because a deeper understanding of the application will eventually lead to the better automated test suite
Understand What To Automate
Since everything cannot be automated, you have to decide and choose exactly what to automate. It is always a better idea to start with automating the most crucial functionalities.
Start Automating During The Development Phase
Starting thinking about automation as early as possible, especially during the development phase will consequently lead to better test coverage which will result in a more stable app.
For automation, you have to select the right tool that suits your application. Once you have selected an automation tool, you have to choose the right test cases that thoroughly check the functionality of the product.
Testers try to create an environment that is very close to the real-world environment where the app will be used. Test cases are then run and bugs are identified.
After automation, maintenance of the test cases is really crucial. Your test suite should be updated with every release.
Non Functional Testing
When it comes to testing an application, you have to check the non-functional aspects of it as well. These aspects include the performance, usability, reliability, etc. of an app.
Non-functional testing is also really important because without it the testing would be incomplete. Even after functional testing is performed, chances of application failure prevail. To eliminate these chances, non-functional testing is also performed by testers.
Testing that was not covered by functional testing is covered in non-functional testing to ensure application efficiency and reliability. It also makes sure that the application is safe and secure.
Some of the important non-functional testing types are as follows:
Performance Testing
This testing checks if the performance of the app meets the criteria or not, under a specific workload
Endurance Testing
This testing checks if the app performs fine under a specific load in a significant period of time
Reliability Testing
This testing type checks how long the application works without failure
Compatibility Testing
This testing simply checks the compatibility of the app with hardware, OS, etc.
Security Testing
This testing ensures the security of the application as there are great chances of un-authorized security access or hacking, especially if the application is made for a big audience
Scalability Testing
This testing ensures that the application is scalable and that there won’t be errors in the future when the app will be re-scaled
Usability Testing
This testing ensures that the application is easy to learn and use for its audience
Efficiency Testing
This testing simply ensures that the application is efficient
Survivability Testing
This testing ensures the continuity of the application functions in case it crashes.
Non Functional Testing Tools
A stakeholder always wants his application to be fast enough to meet the business goals. The use of tools makes the testing a lot easier and a lot more efficient. Following are some of the tools available for non-functional testing:
JMeter
This is a great open-source testing tool used to test non-functional aspects of an app especially load testing. It has a great user interface that allows you to create tests effectively.
LoadRunner
This testing tool allows you to simulate a huge number of users concurrently using the app to test the performance under load.
Frugal Testing
This is a SaaS-based platform that is used to configure and analyze real-time results.
FunkLoad
This is another performance-testing tool written in python. It gives detailed reports after monitoring the load on servers when a web application is loaded. It can also provide a stress testing report by checking the application’s recoverability when it undergoes a huge load.
How Origami Studios Can Help
Functional testing tests if the output of an app conforms to the output that was expected. The goal of this testing is to see if the application does what it was meant to do or not.
Non-functional testing makes sure that the application has performance great enough to meet the business expectations. When a business grows, the users of the application grow as well in numbers and it is important to see if the application will be able to withstand the new load or not.
If you developed an application from some software engineering company and want it to be tested thoroughly by some expert, we have experienced Quality Assurance engineers at Origami Studios who can do this for you. Kindly visit our website for more information at www.origamistudios.us. We cover both functional as well as non-functional aspects of the application.
Origami Studios has a team of experts who can provide you with excellent development solutions. Our qualified engineers have hands-on experience with the latest technologies and we make sure that our clients receive flawless and groundbreaking apps. For more information Contact us today.