Key Considerations Before Launching into Software Testing

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Software Testing Scope In Future

Information technology is one of the fastest-growing and most profitable fields for people who want to work in the business world and have a technical background. Software Testing is the backbone of any IT product or service, and the scope of software testing grows every day. It is one of the biggest industries in the world in terms of job creation and recruitment, with a size of about USD 13 billion.

Career Opportunities

QA Analyst – To begin as a fresher in this field, you would be appointed at the post of QA Analyst.

Automation Tester – If you have an interest and expertise in coding and also want to work in the testing field then the Automation Tester profile is perfect for you.

Test Lead – After some decent experience as QA and Senior QA Engineer, one gets promoted to Test Lead position who manages the team of QAs and the testing process.

A Test Manager – The role of a test manager is defined as managing the whole testing process, resource allocation, and management.

Test Architect – The test architect follows a more technical path instead of the managerial path as that of one of the Test Leads and Managers.

Software Testing Salaries in India

The average salary for Software Test Engineer is ?6,50,000 per year in the India. The average additional cash compensation for a Software Test Engineer in the India is ?50,000, with a range from ?25,000 - ?60,000. Salaries estimates are based on 10653 salaries submitted anonymously to Glassdoor by Software Test Engineer employees in India.

Conclusion

XP Labs offers comprehensive online software training, including a specialized Software Testing course with guaranteed job placement. Their program combines in-depth curriculum with hands-on experience, preparing students for successful careers in software testing and ensuring a smooth transition to the workforce.