Verification testing is the procedure used to examine all predetermined software specifications, documents, code, design, and programs to ensure that the software fulfils these specifications.

A few of the essential docs to be reviewed at this stage are the requirements specification, the blueprints for the design ER diagrams, database table design, test cases and scenarios, traceability matrix, etc.

Verification tests ensure that all development elements, including the software, hardware, documentation and human resources, stick to organizational and team-specific standards and rules. In addition, it checks well to confirm that the system design and architecture are appropriately engineered and have no errors.

If you check the official definition, you’ll notice that the phrase is at “A particular stage of its development”. A single verification test is about one particular stage in the development procedure.

Before the beginning of development, standards and requirements are established for every stage in the procedure. Verification testing checks the software present in the middle of being developed to confirm that it agrees to these standards.

Usually, the verification checks are all about studying the specifications and checking them next to the code logic. The Code reviews, walkthroughs, inspections, design, and specification analysis are usual components of verification testing.

The benefits of Verification Testing

The early and frequent verification reduces the number of bugs and defects that come up in the late stages.

By checking at every stage, the devs, product managers and stakeholders can receive some insight into the type of product they wish to be developed better for the future phases.

Even if they cannot solve the bugs, checking helps the Quality Assurance people guess the issues that might arise and help them handle them the moment they appear.

Verification makes it easy for the software to align carefully with the consumers and business needs at each stage. In addition, this ensures that the devs need to put in less effort as the development continues.

When should you make use of Verification Testing?

Verification Tests must be run at each stage of development before a feature gets implemented.

Let’s consider a button with the label “Add to Cart”. Before making this button, the verification tests go through all the essential requirements previously finalized in the stages of creativity and brainstorming.

Let us say that the documentation mentions that the button should be black with the lettering in white colour. Furthermore, it must not be larger than 10mm*10mm and must be continuously visible at the top right corner of each product page on the website.

One more button with similar text, colour and dimensions must be placed under each product on the page.

Before making the button, design and requirements documents must be reviewed, and all the essential specifications should be listed.

Before you finally construct the button, the design and requirements documents must be minutely reviewed, and all necessary specifications must be listed before good work begins. Ensure you do this before working on each feature or element on the page so that the devs get all the guidelines.

What do we mean by Validation Testing?

According to the IEEE-STD-610, validation testing ensures that “An end product stakeholder’s actual requirements and expectations are fulfilled.”

Similar to verification testing, which happens at each stage of development, validation testing occurs at the end of a particular module or sometimes after the building of the software is over. Its main intention is to check that the final product is similar to the stakeholder and customer requirements.

Most of the QA forms come under this category. For example, all the tests, from unit tests to user acceptance tests, are validation tests. A few of the standard tests that fall under this heading are:

Unit Testing

User Acceptance Testing

Smoke Testing

Integration Testing

Functional Testing

Performance Testing

Regression Testing

Security Testing

Accessibility Testing

System Testing

Cross Browser Testing

The main differences between verification and validation in software testing:

Let’s examine the differences and learn about the validation and verification techniques.

VERIFICATION

It is the static art of studying and checking the particular requirements of a specific stage in development. 

It doesn’t demand the execution of code. Instead, this involves simple human verification of the assets that are required.

It uses techniques like document reviews, inspection, walkthrough of the product and desk checking. 

It’s made for finding the bugs at the start of every development phase. 

The targets are specification documents, application and software architecture design documents, table design for databases, ER diagrams, database table design, test cases and scenarios, traceability matrix and similar stuff. 

It’s performed by the developers and testers to ensure that the software follows the previously fixed standards and reactions. 

Its place is before validation testing.

It doesn’t need devices, browsers, platforms, browsers or operating systems for its implementation. 

VALIDATION

According to most software testing companies in India, It’s the changing practice of testing the final product after development to see that it fulfils the customer needs.

It just requires you to execute the code.

It involves both human and machine-based checking and software approval.

The process is about different types of product testing– unit tests, integration tests, regression tests, cross-device testing and cross-browser.

Its purpose is to discover all bugs that need to be noticed at the verification stage.

Its main target is the product that the customer must use after public release.

It’s mainly handled by QA engineers with experience who comb through an app’s features to check whether they work correctly. 

It carefully follows verification testing.

It’s executed in the best way by making use of real browsers, os and devices.

We are using real browsers, devices, and operating systems.

Also, enjoy our blog on “Go to guide for CTO’s on QA Outsourcing“.

Final Thoughts

Correctly understanding and using verification and validation in software testing will go quite far towards draining out and neutralizing bugs that would spoil user experience and result in negative reviews and bad feedback from customers and final users. Spend some time setting up with the help of verification and validation activities, and you will not have to waste any time handling irrational users downvoting or leaving your application. For assistance with validation and verification in software testing, get in touch with hikeQA, a leading software testing company in India.

The post When to use Validation and Verification in Software Testing? appeared first on hikeqa.

There is a lot of demand for rigorous testing with the consistent developments in software, the growing competition and complicated apps. The success of a product is directly linked to when exactly it was launched. In case the errors aren’t properly checked and the launch is done in an extreme rush, you might make mistakes that can affect your reputation as a software service provider in a negative light.

All high-level apps must be delivered at the right time and within the defined resource limit. The final desire to deliver a lot more in less time has brought about a lot of challenges for the assurance of software quality. The importance of handling software quality is fulfilled with the help of functional testing. The greater the complexity, the more the demand for functional testing. It is also related to innumerable challenges and dangerous risk factors. This is nothing to worry about, as with the help of the best strategies and by adapting the best practices, these problems can be overcome. Unlike non-functional testing, Functional testing begins with monitoring and checking the final product for bugs or problems.

 Below, we have mentioned a few challenges related to functional testing and quality assurance:

Gathering of the requirements:

The test requirements must be clearly defined and capable of adjusting to the changes. Collecting the requirements and bringing them in one place is a major criteria. Try to bring all the requirements in one place before moving somewhere else. More than 50% of the defects get injected in the requirements phase. It forms the base for the future work of the product. If these are not correct, there will be issues for the later stages.

Planning the Test

This one is a highly essential step. Functional gaps in the test plans should be recognized at the right time. Big test plans are checked to understand the problems experienced by the dev team.

Strategy for Testing

Tests are to be delivered within a limited timeline and with the best utilization of proper resources. You must be able to cover all the different test configurations in the best possible way.

Implementation of Test 

Plenty of struggle is there to overcome the mismatch between the required functionality and the plans for the test. There might be specific blocking issues in various functional areas and for re-planning the first plan. Some other challenges in software QA test execution are the total time taken to solve the reappearing issues and fix the test requirement.

Defect Management 

The challenges in defect management include specific ambiguous and incomplete reporting and inconsistency in the report. The bugs might need to be adequately defined for reports and there can be operational errors that highlight the defect. Inefficient tracking influences the complete product functionality.

Reporting Results

Test results need reports that must be easy to understand for the related team members. These reports are in full detail and make the entire process easy. Take help from your entire team to get this done on time. A QA report ok is a doc that captures QA productivity metrics and the performance data. It also translates valuable QA insights into actionable next steps for your business.

Collecting Test Metrics

In the test metrics collection mechanism, you need to check the effectiveness and recognize the areas of improvement.

The more the complexity of software apps and their growing competitiveness, the more the requirement for efficient and exhaustive testing. The most crucial criterion for the success of a product is to launch the perfect product at the perfect time. High-quality apps need to be developed and delivered within the specific schedule using some resources. The need to deliver more with less has brought about an infinite number of challenges in handling the software app quality with the help of functional testing.

The Biggest Challenges of Functional Testing

The functional testing life cycle is limited and comes with challenges and tech restrictions. This is different from non-functional testing. It ends up in creating strategies and best practices to overcome the challenges. Functional testing begins with the collection of the test requirements and covers the design and development tests, implementing the tests into further checking the defects in the product.

Let’s look at the challenges linked to every phase in software functional testing.

Collecting the test requirements:

• Properly defining the complete test requirements.
• Handling and planning the tests.
• Difficulty experienced by the dev team while reviewing the big test plans.
• Properly making use of the available resources.
• Complete test coverage.
• Include different types of test configurations
• Deliver within a fixed deadline 

Executing Tests:

• – A lot of trouble was caused by a mismatch between the test plans and needed functionality.
• The total time required for fixing the test environment and the proper set of supported configurations.
• Time consumed in fixing repetitive issues.
• Blocking the functional area issues.
• Re-planning the very first plan.

Handling the defects:

• Improper reporting of the defects.
• Inconsistency in the report for the same problem by various team members.
• Low severity or priority assignments for the reports.
• Operator errors bring about marking the defect as a wrong defect.
• The wrong procedure was applied for the verification of a defect.
• Wrong tracking of a defect that influences the complete functionality of the software product.

Test Result Reporting:

• Short reports are needed for test results that must be easily understood by every person linked to the project.
• Must provide a full status report feature-wise.
• The report must simplify the decision-making for the product.

Gathering Test Metrics, Analysis & Improvement:

• The whole mechanism needs to check the quality and effectiveness of the testing process and recognize the areas of improvement in detail.

Find out How Functional Test Automation Boosts Your Business ROI?

Concluding Lines

Most software testing companies in India state that It’s impossible to test a product thoroughly. The test coverage for any product is based on the resting capacity of the deployed team. The software complexities make the test requirement crucial. These need lots of hardware and software configurations. The configuration coverage is challenging.

Most importantly, it must be taken into account that the time and resources in hand are limited. After consideration of all these facts, proper test management should be designed. For more help and support with functional testing, get in touch with the efficient team at hikeQA.

The post Common challenges with functional testing and how to overcome them? appeared first on hikeqa.