A Guide to Validation Testing

The importance of validation in software testing cannot be overstated.

In this article, we'll address all of the frequently asked questions we receive about validation testing in an effort to avoid trial and error.

What Is Validation Testing?

Validation testing is the Quality Assurance practice of validation testing that ensures the product meets customer requirements and quality standards. It is one of many different types of testing in software.?

Validation testing is oftentimes referred to as acceptance testing, as it’s usually performed once the developer has finished writing code. It’s a process of checking to see if a product can be accepted based on certain criteria or requirements that are defined in advance by the consumer or user.

Businesses often perform validation testing as part of their software development life cycle (SDLC).

Validation testing is a critical part of the software development lifecycle. Why?

Because undetected defects and bugs can disappoint and frustrate users, expose your company to data breaches and ransomware attacks, and even trigger critical system outages. One way to help improve quality and reduce costs is by conducting rigorous testing of your product at various stages of its development.?

How do you plan a validation test?

Here’s the answer in a nutshell:

• Define Requirements – During this phase, you’ll be planning the entire process beforehand and establishing the exact requirements that will be the basis of your Validation Test plan.
• Team Selection – You’ll need to put together a competent, experienced and talented QA team. They should all have knowledge of what the product should be doing.
• Maintaining Documentation – Any form of testing requires extensive user specification documentation not to mention release cases, test cases, and manuals that have to be compiled. Decide who will be responsible for your project’s validation docs.
• Validation Report – The software is evaluated based on user specifications and a validation report is submitted. Then, your team will cross-check the evaluations and set a target date for the bug removal. The Final Report or Validation Report (VR) usually signals the end of the validation process. Upon approval of the final report, the software system will be released into production.?
• Incorporation of changes – Incorporate any necessary changes that were validated in the last stage.

The validation test can be carried out in different ways, depending on the requirements.?

So, how do we run tests at December Labs??

The testing strategy depends on a variety of factors, such as the client’s requirements, timeframe, and resources. It is definitely not the same to sketch a testing strategy for a project in the long run than for an MVP that needs to go into production in a short period of time (for example, a couple of weeks).

The goal is to implement quality practices from the beginning of a project as a way to detect important issues early on, allowing us to quickly solve them without incurring extraordinary costs.

We first start by analyzing the design, understanding the business requirements and client needs. As the functionalities (both Backend and Frontend) are implemented, we begin to perform manual tests. As soon as the features don’t contain any critical bugs, we can start automating them, so that later on we can have greater coverage of the system in less time.

As all these tests are executed, if we find any bugs or errors, we report them to the team, establishing their priority to create a strategy to solve them.

At December Labs, our suggested approach to Validation Testing combines Agile Testing with QA Automation and Exploratory Testing.?

First of all, for any project process that follows Agile Methodologies, we encourage the use of Agile Testing. As a result of working with Agile, product functionalities and code are constantly changing, which requires frequent production releases and testing to ensure code quality. The corresponding QA process is extensive because testers must, on the one hand, verify that everything is operating properly by performing a full system regression, while, on the other hand, test the new features from the sprint. As soon as we have features that are stable and can be automated, e.g. regression testing, we recommend starting to implement QA Automation, so we only need to supplement those aspects that cannot be automated with manual (exploratory) testing. With the help of this combined approach, we can apply Agile sprints to products that need to go into production in a short period of time.

The QA team at December Labs can help you develop a Validation Testing strategy and execute it. Reach out to us at [email protected].

For more information about the validation testing stages, the difference between verification and validation, and the types of validation tests, see our in-depth blog post here: https://decemberlabs.com/blog/validation-testing/