Q.1What makes a good test engineer?

A good test engineer has a 'test to break' attitude, an ability to take the point of view of the customer, a strong desire for quality, and an attention to detail. Tact and diplomacy are useful in maintaining a cooperative relationship with developers, and an ability to communicate with both technical (developers) and non-technical (customers, management) people is useful. Previous software development experience can be helpful as it provides a deeper understanding of the software development process, gives the tester an appreciation for the developers' point of view, and reduce the learning curve in automated test tool programming. Judgment skills are needed to assess high-risk areas of an application on which to focus testing efforts when time is limited. Q.2What makes a good Software QA engineer? The same qualities a good tester has are useful for a QA engineer. Additionally, they must be able to understand the entire software development process and how it can fit into the business approach and goals of the organization. Communication skills and the ability to understand various sides of issues are important. In organizations in the early stages of implementing QA processes, patience and diplomacy are especially needed. An ability to find problems as well as to see 'what's missing' is important for inspections and reviews. Q.3 What makes a good QA or Test manager? A good QA, test, or QA/Test(combined) manager should: be familiar with the software development process be able to maintain enthusiasm of their team and promote a positive atmosphere, despite be able to promote teamwork to increase productivity be able to promote cooperation between software, test, and QA engineers have the diplomatic skills needed to promote improvements in QA processes have the ability to withstand pressures and say 'no' to other managers when quality is insufficient or QA processes are not being adhered to have people judgment skills for hiring and keeping skilled personnel be able to communicate with technical and non-technical people, engineers, managers, and customers. be able to run meetings and keep them focused

Q.4 What's the role of documentation in QA? Critical. (Note that documentation can be electronic, not necessarily paper.) QA practices should be documented such that they are repeatable. Specifications, designs, business rules, inspection reports, configurations, code changes, test plans, test cases, bug reports, user manuals, etc. should all be documented. There should ideally be a system for easily finding and obtaining documents and determining what documentation will have a particular piece of information. Change management for documentation should be used if possible. Q.5What's the big deal about 'requirements'? One of the most reliable methods of insuring problems, or failure, in a complex software project is to have poorly documented requirements specifications. Requirements are the details describing an application's externally-perceived functionality and properties. Requirements should be clear, complete, reasonably detailed,attainable, and testable. A non-testable requirement would be, for example, 'user-friendly' (too subjective). A testable requirement would be something like 'the user must enter their previously-assigned password to access the application'. Determining and organizing requirements details in a useful and efficient way can be a difficult effort; different methods are available depending on the particular project. Care should be taken to involve ALL of a project's significant 'customers' in the requirements process. 'Customers' could be in-house personnel or out, and could include end-users, customer acceptance testers, customer contract officers, customer management, future software maintenance engineers, salespeople, etc. Anyone who could later derail the project if their expectations aren't met should be included if possible. Organizations vary considerably in their handling of requirements specifications. Ideally, the requirements are spelled out in a document with statements such as 'The product shall.....'. 'Design' specifications should not be confused with 'requirements'; design specifications should be traceable back to the requirements. In some organizations requirements may end up in high level project plans, functional specification documents, in design documents, or in other documents at various levels of detail. No matter what they are called, some type of documentation with detailed requirements will be needed by testers in order to properly plan and execute tests. Without such documentation, there will be no clear-cut way to determine if a software application is performing correctly.

Q.6.What steps are needed to develop and run software tests? The following are some of the steps to consider: Obtain requirements, functional design, and internal design specifications and other necessary documents Obtain budget and schedule requirements Determine project-related personnel and their responsibilities, reporting requirements, required standards and processes (such as release processes, change processes, etc.) Identify application's higher-risk aspects, set priorities, and determine scope and limitations of tests Determine test approaches and methods - unit, integration, functional, system, load, usability tests, etc. Determine test environment requirements (hardware, software, communications, etc.) Determine testware requirements (record/playback tools, coverage analyzers, test tracking, problem/bug tracking, etc.) Determine test input data requirements Identify tasks, those responsible for tasks, and labourr requirements Set schedule estimates, timelines, milestones Determine input equivalence classes, boundary value analyses, error classes Prepare test plan document and have needed reviews/approvals Write test cases Have needed reviews/inspections/approvals of test cases Prepare test environment and test ware, obtain needed user manuals/reference documents/configuration guides/installation guides, set up test tracking processes, set up logging and archiving processes, set up or obtain test input data Obtain and install software releases Perform tests Evaluate and report results Track problems/bugs and fixes Retest as needed Maintain and update test plans, test cases, test environment, and testware through life cycle.

Q.7What should be done after a bug is found? The bug needs to be communicated and assigned to developers that can fix it. After the problem is resolved, fixes should be re-tested, and determinations made regarding requirements for regression testing to check that fixes didn't create problems elsewhere. If a problem-tracking system is in place, it should encapsulate these processes. A variety of commercial problem-tracking/management software tools are available The following are items to consider in the tracking process: Complete information such that developers can understand the bug, get an idea of it's severity, and reproduce it if necessary. Bug identifier (number, ID, etc.) Current bug status (e.g., 'Released for Retest', 'New', etc.) The application name or identifier and version The function, module, feature, object, screen, etc. where the bug occurred Environment specifics, system, platform, relevant hardware specifics Test case name/number/identifier One-line bug description Full bug description Description of steps needed to reproduce the bug if not covered by a test case or if the developer doesn't have easy access to the test case/test script/test tool Names and/or descriptions of file/data/messages/etc. used in test File excerpts/error messages/log file excerpts/screen shots/test tool logs that would be helpful in finding the cause of the problem Severity estimate (a 5-level range such as 1-5 or 'critical'-to-'low' is common) Was the bug reproducible? Tester name Test date Bug reporting date Name of developer/group/organization the problem is assigned to Description of problem cause Description of fix Code section/file/module/class/method that was fixed Date of fix Application version that contains the fix Tester responsible for retest Retest date Retest results Regression testing requirements

 Tester responsible for regression tests Regression testing results A reporting or tracking process should enable notification of appropriate personnel at various stages. For instance, testers need to know when retesting is needed, developers need to know when bugs are found and how to get the needed information, and reporting/summary capabilities are needed for managers. Q.8 What if the software is so buggy it can't really be tested at all? The best bet in this situation is for the testers to go through the process of reporting whatever bugs or blocking-type problems initially show up, with the focus being on critical bugs. Since this type of problem can severely affect schedules, and indicates deeper problems in the software development process (such as insufficient unit testing or insufficient integration testing, poor design, improper build or release procedures, etc.) managers should be notified, and provided with some documentation as evidence of the problem. Q.9How can it be known when to stop testing? This can be difficult to determine. Many modern software applications are so complex, and run in such an interdependent environment, that complete testing can never be done. Common factors in deciding when to stop are: Deadlines (release deadlines, testing deadlines, etc.) Test cases completed with certain percentage passed Test budget. Coverage of code/functionality/requirements reaches a specified point Bug rate falls below a certain level Beta or alpha testing period ends Q.10.What if there isn't enough time for thorough testing? Use risk analysis to determine where testing should be focused. Since it's rarely possible to test every possible aspect of an application, every possible combination of events, every dependency, or everything that could go wrong, risk analysis is appropriate to most software development projects. This requires judgement skills, common sense, and experience. (If warranted, formal methods are also available.) Considerations can include: Which functionality is most important to the project's intended purpose? Which functionality is most visible to the user?

 Which functionality has the largest safety impact? Which functionality has the largest financial impact on users? Which aspects of the application are most important to the customer? Which aspects of the application can be tested early in the development cycle? Which parts of the code are most complex, and thus most subject to errors? Which parts of the application were developed in rush or panic mode? Which aspects of similar/related previous projects caused problems? Which aspects of similar/related previous projects had large maintenance expenses? Which parts of the requirements and design are unclear or poorly thought out? What do the developers think are the highest-risk aspects of the application? What kinds of problems would cause the worst publicity? What kinds of problems would cause the most customer service complaints? What kinds of tests could easily cover multiple functionalities? Which tests will have the best high-risk-coverage to time-required ratio? Q.11What if the project isn't big enough to justify extensive testing? Consider the impact of project errors, not the size of the project. However, if extensive testing is still not justified, risk analysis is again needed and the same considerations as described previously in 'What if there isn't enough time for thorough testing?' apply. The tester might then do ad hoc testing, or write up a limited test plan based on the risk analysis. Q.12What can be done if requirements are changing continuously? A common problem and a major headache. Work with the project's stakeholders early on to understand how requirements might change so that alternate test plans and strategies can be worked out in advance, if possible. It's helpful if the application's initial design allows for some adaptability so that later changes do not require redoing the application from scratch. If the code is well-commented and well-documented this makes changes easier for the developers. Use rapid prototyping whenever possible to help customers feel sure of

their requirements and minimize changes. The project's initial schedule should allow for some extra time commensurate with the possibility of changes. Try to move new requirements to a 'Phase 2' version of an application, while using the original requirements for the 'Phase 1' version. Negotiate to allow only easily-implemented new requirements into the project, while moving more difficult new requirements into future versions of the application. Be sure that customers and management understand the scheduling impacts, inherent risks, and costs of significant requirements changes. Then let management or the customers (not the developers or testers) decide if the changes are warranted - after all, that's their job. Balance the effort put into setting up automated testing with the expected effort required to re-do them to deal with changes. Try to design some flexibility into automated test scripts. Focus initial automated testing on application aspects that are most likely to remain unchanged. Devote appropriate effort to risk analysis of changes to minimize regression testing needs. Design some flexibility into test cases (this is not easily done; the best bet might be to minimize the detail in the test cases, or set up only higher-level generic-type test plans) Focus less on detailed test plans and test cases and more on ad hoc testing (with an understanding of the added risk that this entails) Q.13.What if the application has functionality that wasn't in the requirements? It may take serious effort to determine if an application has significant unexpected or hidden functionality, and it would indicate deeper problems in the software development process. If the functionality isn't necessary to the purpose of the application, it should be removed, as it may have unknown impacts or dependencies that were not taken into account by the designer or the customer. If not removed, design information will be needed to determine added testing needs or regression testing needs. Management should be made aware of any significant added risks as a result of the unexpected functionality. If the functionality only effects areas such as minor improvements in the user interface, for example, it may not be a significant risk.

Q.14 What if an organization is growing so fast that fixed QA processes are impossible? This is a common problem in the software industry, especially in new technology areas. There is no easy solution in this situation, other than: Hire good people Management should 'ruthlessly prioritize' quality issues and maintain focus on the customer Everyone in the organization should be clear on what 'quality' means to the customer Q.15 How does a client/server environment affect testing? Client/server applications can be quite complex due to the multiple dependencies among clients, data communications, hardware, and servers. Thus testing requirements can be extensive. When time is limited (as it usually is) the focus should be on integration and system testing. Additionally, load/stress/performance testing may be useful in determining client/server application limitations and capabilities.

Q.16 How can World Wide Web sites be tested? Web sites are essentially client/server applications - with web servers and 'browser' clients. Consideration should be given to the interactions between html pages, TCP/IP communications, Internet connections, firewalls, applications that run in web pages (such as applets, javascript, plug-in applications), and applications that run on the server side (such as cgi scripts, database interfaces, logging applications, dynamic page generators, asp, etc.). Additionally, there are a wide variety of servers and browsers, various versions of each, small but sometimes significant differences between them, variations in connection speeds, rapidly changing technologies, and multiple standards and protocols. The end result is that testing for web sites can become a major ongoing effort.

Q.17.Other considerations might include: What are the expected loads on the server (e.g., number of hits per unit time?)what kind of performance is required under such loads (such as web server response time, database query response times). What kinds of tools will be needed for performance testing (such as web load testing tools, other tools already in house that can be adapted, web robot downloading tools, etc.)? Who is the target audience? What kind of browsers will they be using? What kind of connection speeds will they by using? Are they intraorganization (thus with likely high connection speeds and similar browsers) or Internet-wide (thus with a wide variety of connection speeds and browser types)? What kind of performance is expected on the client side (e.g., how fast should pages appear, how fast should animations, applets, etc. load and run)? Will down time for server and content maintenance/upgrades be allowed? how much? What kinds of security (firewalls, encryptions, passwords, etc.) will be required and what is it expected to do? How can it be tested? How reliable are the site's Internet connections required to be? And how does that affect backup system or redundant connection requirements and testing? What processes will be required to manage updates to the web site's content, and what are the requirements for maintaining, tracking, and controlling page content, graphics, links, etc.? Which HTML specification will be adhered to? How strictly? What variations will be allowed for targeted browsers? Will there be any standards or requirements for page appearance and/or graphics throughout a site or parts of a site?? How will internal and external links be validated and updated? how often? Can testing be done on the production system, or will a separate test system be required? How are browser caching, variations in browser option settings, dial-up connection variabilities, and real-world internet 'traffic congestion' problems to be accounted for in testing? How extensive or customized are the server logging and reporting requirements; are they considered an integral part of the system and do they require testing? How are cgi programs, applets, javascripts, ActiveX components, etc. to be

maintained, tracked, controlled, and tested? Some sources of site security information include the Usenet newsgroup 'comp.security.announce' and links concerning web site security in the 'Other Resources' section. Some usability guidelines to consider - these are subjective and may or may not apply to a given situation (Note: more information on usability testing issues can be found in articles about web site usability in the 'Other Resources' section): Pages should be 3-5 screens max unless content is tightly focused on a single topic. If larger, provide internal links within the page. The page layouts and design elements should be consistent throughout a site, so that it's clear to the user that they're still within a site. Pages should be as browser-independent as possible, or pages should be provided or generated based on the browser-type. All pages should have links external to the page; there should be no deadend pages. The page owner, revision date, and a link to a contact person or organization should be included on each page. Many new web site test tools have appeared in the recent years and more than 280 of them are listed i

Web Testing: During testing the websites the following scenarios should be considered.

Functionality Performance Usability Server side interface Client side compatibility Security Functionality:

In testing the functionality of the web sites the following should be tested. Links Internal links External links Mail links

Broken links Forms Field validation Functional chart Error message for wrong input Optional and mandatory fields Database Testing will be done on the database integrity. Cookies Testing will be done on the client system side, on the temporary internet files. Performance: Performance testing can be applied to understand the web site's scalability, or to benchmark the performance in the environment of third party products such as servers and middleware for potential purchase. Connection speed: Tested over various Networks like Dial up, ISDN etc Load what is the no. of users per time? Check for peak loads & how system behaves. Large amount of data accessed by user. Stress Continuous load Performance of memory, cpu, file handling etc. Usability: Usability testing is the process by which the human-computer interaction characteristics of a system are measured, and weaknesses are identified for correction. Usability can be defined as the degree to which a given piece of software assists the person sitting at the keyboard to accomplish a task, as opposed to becoming an additional impediment to such accomplishment. The broad goal of usable systems is often assessed using several criteria:

Ease of learning

Navigation Subjective user satisfaction General appearance

Server side interface: In web testing the server side interface should be tested. This is done by Verify that communication is done properly. Compatibility of server with software, hardware, network and database should be tested. The client side compatibility is also tested in various platforms, using various browsers etc. Security: The primary reason for testing the security of an web is to identify potential vulnerabilities and subsequently repair them. The following types of testing are described in this section:

Network Scanning Vulnerability Scanning Password Cracking Log Review Integrity Checkers Virus Detection

Load testing: Load testing is usually defined as the process of exercising the system under test by feeding it the largest tasks it can operate with. Load testing is sometimes called volume testing, or longevity/endurance testing Examples of volume testing:

testing a word processor by editing a very large document testing a printer by sending it a very large job testing a mail server with thousands of users mailboxes

Examples of longevity/endurance testing: Testing a client-server application by running the client in a loop against the server over an extended period

Stress testing: Stress testing is a form of testing that is used to determine the stability of a given system or entity. This is designed to test the software with abnormal situations. Stress testing attempts to find the limits at which the system will fail through abnormal quantity or frequency of inputs. Stress testing tries to break the system under test by overwhelming its resources or by taking resources away from it (in which case it is sometimes called negative testing). The main purpose behind this madness is to make sure that the system fails and recovers gracefully -- this quality is known as recoverability. Stress testing does not break the system but instead it allows observing how the system reacts to failure. Stress testing observes for the following.

Does it save its state or does it crash suddenly? Does it just hang and freeze or does it fail gracefully? Is it able to recover from the last good state on restart? Etc.

Compatability Testing A Testing to ensure compatibility of an application or Web site with different browsers, OS and hardware platforms. Different versions, configurations, display resolutions, and Internet connect speeds all can impact the behavior of the product and introduce costly and embarrassing bugs. We test for compatibility using real test environments. That is testing how will the system performs in the particular software, hardware or network environment. Compatibility testing can be performed manually or can be driven by an automated functional or regression test suite. The purpose of compatibility testing is to reveal issues related to the products interaction with other software as well as hardware. The product compatibility is evaluated by first identifying the hardware/software/browser components that the product is designed to support. Then a hardware/software/browser matrix is designed that indicates the configurations on which the product will be tested. Then, with input from the client, a testing script is designed that will be sufficient to evaluate compatibility between the product and the hardware/software/browser

matrix. Finally, the script is executed against the matrix, and any anomalies are investigated to determine exactly where the incompatibility lies. Some typical compatibility tests include testing your application:

On various client hardware configurations Using different memory sizes and hard drive space On various Operating Systems In different network environments With different printers and peripherals (i.e. zip drives, USBs, etc.)

Q.19What is difference between client server and Web Testing? Desktop application testing, Client server application testing and Web application testing. Each one differs in the environment in which they are tested and you will lose control over the environment in which application you are testing, while you move from desktop to web applications. Desktop application runs on personal computers and work stations, so when you test the desktop application you are focusing on a specific environment. You will test complete application broadly in categories like GUI, functionality, Load, and backend i.e DB. In client server application you have two different components to test. Application is loaded on server machine while the application exe on every client machine. You will test broadly in categories like, GUI on both sides, functionality, Load, client-server interaction, backend. This environment is mostly used in Intranet networks. You are aware of number of clients and servers and their locations in the test scenario. Web application is a bit different and complex to test as tester dont have that much control over the application. Application is loaded on the server whose location may or may not be known and no exe is installed on the client machine, you have to test it on different web browsers. Web applications are supposed to be tested on different browsers and OS platforms so broadly Web application is tested mainly for browser compatibility and operating system compatibility, error handling, static pages, backend testing and load testing.

Keep in mind that even the difference exist in these three environment, the basic quality assurance and testing principles remains same and applies to all. Why does Software have bugs? There are many reasons for Bug in software, Most are man introduced and some are machine oriented. Here is the the broad list: 1. Miscommunication or no communication As to specifics of what an application should or shouldnt do (the applications requirements). 2. Software complexity The complexity of current software applications can be difficult to comprehend for anyone without experience in modern-day software development. Windows-type interfaces, client-server and distributed applications, data communications, enormous relational databases, and sheer size of applications have all contributed to the exponential growth in software/system complexity. And the use of object-oriented techniques can complicate instead of simplify a project unless it is well-engineered. 3. Programming errors Programmers, like anyone else, can make mistakes. 4. Changing requirements The customer may not understand the effects of changes, or may understand and request them anyway - redesign, rescheduling of engineers, effects on other projects, work already completed that may have to be redone or thrown out, hardware requirements that may be affected, etc. If there are many minor changes or any major changes, known and unknown dependencies among parts of the project are likely to interact and cause problems, and the complexity of keeping track of changes may result in errors. Enthusiasm of engineering staff may be affected. In some fast-changing business environments, continuously modified requirements may be a fact of life. In this case, management must understand the resulting risks, and QA and test engineers must adapt and plan for continuous extensive testing to keep the inevitable bugs from running out of control.

5. Time pressures Scheduling of software projects is difficult at best, often requiring a lot of guesswork. When deadlines loom and the crunch comes, mistakes will be made. Egos - people prefer to say things like: no problem piece of cake I can whip that out in a few hours it should be easy to update that old code Instead of: that adds a lot of complexity and we could end up making a lot of mistakes we have no idea if we can do that; well wing it I cant estimate how long it will take, until I take a close look at it we cant figure out what that old spaghetti code did in the first place If there are too many unrealistic no problems, the result is bugs. 1. Poorly documented code Its tough to maintain and modify code that is badly written or poorly documented; the result is bugs. In many organizations management provides no incentive for programmers to document their code or write clear, understandable code. In fact, its usually the opposite: they get points mostly for quickly turning out code, and theres job security if nobody else can understand it (if it was hard to write, it should be hard to read). 2 Software development tools Visual tools, class libraries, compilers, scripting tools, etc. often introduce their own bugs or are poorly documented, resulting in added bugs.

Sometimes Tester need common sense to test a application!!! Most of the times it is not possible to test the whole application within the specified time. In such situations its better to find out the risk factors in the projects and concentrate on them.

Here are some points to be considered when you are in such a situation: 1) Find out Important functionality is your project? 2) Find out High-risk module of the project? 3) Which functionality is most visible to the user? 4) Which functionality has the largest safety impact? 5) Which functionality has the largest financial impact on users? 6) Which aspects of the application are most important to the customer? 7) Which parts of the code are most complex, and thus most subject to errors? 8)Which parts of the application were developed in rush or panic mode? 9) What do the developers think are the highest-risk aspects of the application? 10) What kinds of problems would cause the worst publicity? 11) What kinds of problems would cause the most customer service complaints? 12) What kinds of tests could easily cover multiple functionalities? Considering these points you can greatly reduce the risk of project releasing under less time constraint. Is there any standard procedure to test the application as a whole? Or How to test complete application right from the requirement gathering? Here are the broad steps to test the application :These are the standard SQA peocesses to be followed in any application testing.

Marketing Requirements

Review of the Objectives set for the Last Released Build Objectives remaining to be completed are carried forward for the next release.

Branching for the development cycle Objectives settings for the Major and customized releases

Target Date planned for the Releases and decision on the entire Project schedule that is required to achieve these target dates.

A Detailed Project Plan and the release of design Specifications

This includes the decision on Design Specifications (Productwise), review of the design specs and development schedule. This involves QA during the phase of review.

QA Develop Test Plan based on Design Specifications

Test Plan : This is a top-level document that talks about how the product is going to be tested This includes Objectives, Methodology adopted while testing, Features to be tested and not to be tested, risk criteria, testing schedule, cross-platform support and the resource allocation for testing. Feature Test Plan : This document talks about how the testing is going to be carried out for each type of testing.

QA Functional Test Specifications

This document includes technical details (Software requirements) required prior to the testing. It is important from the testers point of view to understand and plan the technical resources prior to the testing. Application Development : Considering the product features, tester has to make ready his/her own test suit.

QA Writing of Test Cases (CM)

- Smoke (BVT) test cases - Sanity Test cases - Regression Test Cases - Extended Test Cases - Negative Test Cases

Development Goes on Module by Module. Installers Binding and Building

- Installers are built around the individual product. - Release Engg is responsible for releasing the Builds. - Release Engg collects fresh/developed code from the developers initially/module wise.

- Installers have to take care of jar files updating, registry entries, and additional software installations.

Build Procedure :

- A build includes Installers of the available products multiple platforms. - For each build one or 2 CDs are made/build the same are pushed to Pune/Chennai based on the priority. - Each product build are received in the form of zip files under http://punqaftp/ftproot/QA-Builds ( Pune-Specific). The procedure goes along for Chennai. San Jose QA picks up builds from Nexus ( Build Specific Server ) - The same zip files need to be unzipped to get the desired installer and the same is put at Pun_fps1/QA/Builds folder. ( Pune-Specific)

QA Testing :

- Smoke Test (BVT) to check basic features of the product. - Smoke Test results has to be posted on http://Chaquita which is an official site for posting Smoke - Test results and to share the basic testing information. - Prepare Smoke Test procedure.

QA Extensive testing :

- Testing of new features - Document review - Cross-platform testing - Stress testing and memory leakage testing.

QA- Bug Reporting :

- Use of Trackwebs Soffront as the Bug Tracking tool. - Further FET (Fixed Effectiveness testing) of the filed bugs. - Exception study and verification.

Development Code freeze :

No more new features are added at this point.

QA Testing :

Candidate Builds and regression testing.

QA- Media Verification :

CDs are cut for the released products and the product is installed using those CDs and it takes place in San Jose.

Decision to release the product :

A review meeting to analyze the performance of the product, which is set, and the same is compared with the objectives set.

Post-release Scenario :

One branch is kept for the post release modification and hence the product testing. Post release review meeting to decide upon the objectives for the next release. hi can u tell me how to determine? the number of test cases to be written. I think I can help you. For every given application you must write 3 test cases which always finds as many important problems, quickly and provides quality related information to help the management take decisions. If you are on a project where your manager is not aware of what testing is all about, you might want to write thousands of them to impress him, execute a few, find a few bugs ( that dance before you ) and map it to a test case. If you are a bit lucky to get a manager who is aware that, the number of test cases is not important but information about the quality, you live longer as a tester. If thats too technical, here is something that you might like to answer: You buy a mobile phone and you find that it disconnects a call after ever minute and you are annoyed and call up the company support

number to report this problem and you get a reply: Our testers have already 1983498348 test cases and we have no time to execute the ones that are already existing and we cant take buy your idea , would you or your manager enjoy that moment and say, Wow! you have 1983498348 test cases for this phone? Q.how many test case u can develop for one day? Test case is not measured on the basis of quantity but on quality.You should give preference to write the quality test cases not the number. word quality means in those test cases most of the application get covered. Then you can think of writing enhancement to product test cases.there is no use of writing million test cases if you are not able to execute them.will try to write the test cases that will cover all the modules and the product. Q.what are the documents we have to maintain form the (as a tester) stating the testing to end of testing Maintaining documents depends on your role in project. As you are talking about tester, Here is the list of documents to be maintained from project start to end: 1) Test plan 2) Acceptance criteria 3) Test design specification - specifies how a feature or group of features will be tested 4) Test case specification 5) Test procedure 6) Test script: all about getting started, description of each test 7) Test summary and Test log What would be your test approach for testing an Air conditioner or Cofee machine or Mobile Handset etc. 1) Functionality Testing 2) Usability testing 3) Interface testing 4) Compatibility testing 5) Performance testing 6) Security testing

1) Functionality Testing: Test for - all the links in web pages, database connection, forms used in the web pages for submitting or getting information from user, Cookie testing. Check all the links:

Test the outgoing links from all the pages from specific domain under test. Test all internal links. Test links jumping on the same pages. Test links used to send the email to admin or other users from web pages. Test to check if there are any orphan pages. Lastly in link checking, check for broken links in all above-mentioned links.

Test forms in all pages: Forms are the integral part of any web site. Forms are used to get information from users and to keep interaction with them. So what should be checked on these forms?

First check all the validations on each field. Check for the default values of fields. Wrong inputs to the fields in the forms. Options to create forms if any, form delete, view or modify the forms.

Lets take example of the search engine project currently I am working on, In this project we have advertiser and affiliate signup steps. Each sign up step is different but dependent on other steps. So sign up flow should get executed correctly. There are different field validations like email Ids, User financial info validations. All these validations should get checked in manual or automated web testing. Cookies testing: Cookies are small files stored on user machine. These are basically used to maintain the session mainly login sessions. Test the application by enabling or disabling the cookies in your browser options. Test if the cookies are encrypted before writing to user machine. If you are testing the session cookies (i.e. cookies expire after the sessions ends) check for login sessions

and user stats after session end. Check effect on application security by deleting the cookies. (I will soon write separate article on cookie testing) Validate your HTML/CSS: If you are optimizing your site for Search engines then HTML/CSS validation is very important. Mainly validate the site for HTML syntax errors. Check if site is crawlable to different search engines. Database testing: Data consistency is very important in web application. Check for data integrity and errors while you edit, delete, modify the forms or do any DB related functionality. Check if all the database queries are executing correctly, data is retrieved correctly and also updated correctly. More on database testing could be load on DB, we will address this in web load or performance testing below. 2) Usability Testing: Test for navigation: Navigation means how the user surfs the web pages, different controls like buttons, boxes or how user using the links on the pages to surf different pages. Usability testing includes: Web site should be easy to use. Instructions should be provided clearly. Check if the provided instructions are correct means whether they satisfy purpose. Main menu should be provided on each page. It should be consistent. Content checking: Content should be logical and easy to understand. Check for spelling errors. Use of dark colors annoys users and should not be used in site theme. You can follow some standards that are used for web page and content building. These are common accepted standards like as I mentioned above about annoying colors, fonts, frames etc. Content should be meaningful. All the anchor text links should be working properly. Images should be placed properly with proper sizes. These are some basic standards that should be followed in web development. Your task is to validate all for UI testing Other user information for user help: Like search option, sitemap, help files etc. Sitemap should be present with

all the links in web sites with proper tree view of navigation. Check for all links on the sitemap. Search in the site option will help users to find content pages they are looking for easily and quickly. These are all optional items and if present should be validated. 3) Interface Testing: The main interfaces are: Web server and application server interface Application server and Database server interface. Check if all the interactions between these servers are executed properly. Errors are handled properly. If database or web server returns any error message for any query by application server then application server should catch and display these error messages appropriately to users. Check what happens if user interrupts any transaction in-between? Check what happens if connection to web server is reset in between? 4) Compatibility Testing: Compatibility of your web site is very important testing aspect. See which compatibility test to be executed:

Browser compatibility Operating system compatibility Mobile browsing Printing options

Browser compatibility: Some applications are very dependent on browsers. Different browsers have different configurations and settings that your web page should be compatible with. Your web site coding should be cross browser platform compatible. If you are using java scripts or AJAX calls for UI functionality, performing security checks or validations then give more stress on browser compatibility testing of your web application. Test web application on different browsers like Internet explorer, Firefox, Netscape navigator, AOL, Safari, Opera browsers with different versions.

OS compatibility: Some functionality in your web application is may not be compatible with all operating systems. All new technologies used in web development like graphics designs, interface calls like different APIs may not be available in all Operating Systems. Test your web application on different operating systems like Windows, Unix, MAC, Linux, Solaris with different OS flavors. Mobile browsing: This is new technology age. So in future Mobile browsing will rock. Test your web pages on mobile browsers. Compatibility issues may be there on mobile. Printing options: If you are giving page-printing options then make sure fonts, page alignment, page graphics getting printed properly. Pages should be fit to paper size or as per the size mentioned in printing option. 5) Performance testing: Web application should sustain to heavy load. Web performance testing should include: Web Load Testing Web Stress Testing Test application performance on different internet connection speed. In web load testing test if many users are accessing or requesting the same page. Can system sustain in peak load times? Site should handle many simultaneous user requests, large input data from users, Simultaneous connection to DB, heavy load on specific pages etc. Stress testing: Generally stress means stretching the system beyond its specification limits. Web stress testing is performed to break the site by giving stress and checked how system reacts to stress and how system recovers from crashes. Stress is generally given on input fields, login and sign up areas. In web performance testing web site functionality on different operating systems, different hardware platforms is checked for software, hardware memory leakage errors,

6) Security Testing: Following are some test cases for web security testing:

Test by pasting internal url directly into browser address bar without login. Internal pages should not open. If you are logged in using username and password and browsing internal pages then try changing url options directly. I.e. If you are checking some publisher site statistics with publisher site ID= 123. Try directly changing the url site ID parameter to different site ID which is not related to logged in user. Access should denied for this user to view others stats. Try some invalid inputs in input fields like login username, password, input text boxes. Check the system reaction on all invalid inputs. Web directories or files should not be accessible directly unless given download option. Test the CAPTCHA for automates scripts logins. Test if SSL is used for security measures. If used proper message should get displayed when user switch from non-secure http:// pages to secure https:// pages and vice versa. All transactions, error messages, security breach attempts should get logged in log files somewhere on web server.

These are all the negative test cases. I assume that you already tested the same sign up page with all valid cases to check application is working fine as per requirements.. How testing is carried out in company i.e in practical environment? Those who get just out of college and start for searching the jobs have this curiosity, How would be the actual working environment in the companies? Here I focus on software Testing actual working process in the companies. As of now I got good experience of software testing career and day to day testing activities. So I will try to share more practically rather than theoretically. Whenever we get any new project there is initial project familiarity meeting. In this meeting we basically discuss on who is client? what is project

duration and when is delivery? Who is involved in project i.e manager, Tech leads, QA leads, developers, testers etc etc..? From the SRS (software requirement specification) project plan is developed. The responsibility of testers is to create software test plan from this SRS and project plan. Developers start coding from the design. The project work is divided into different modules and these project modules are distributed among the developers. In meantime testers responsibility is to create test scenario and write test cases according to assigned modules. We try to cover almost all the functional test cases from SRS. The data can be maintained manually in some excel test case templates or bug tracking tools. When developers finish individual modules, those modules are assigned to testers. Smoke/sanity testing is performed on these modules and if they fail this test, modules are reassigned to respective developers for fix. For passed modules manual testing is carried out from the written test cases. If any bug is found that get assigned to module developer and get logged in bug tracking tool. On bug fix tester do bug verification and regression testing of all related modules. If bug passes the verification it is marked as verified and marked as closed. Otherwise above mentioned bug cycle gets repeated. Different tests are performed on individual modules and integration testing on module integration. These tests includes Compatibility testing i.e testing application on different hardware, OS versions, software platform, different browsers etc. Load and stress testing is also carried out according to SRS. Finally system testing is performed by creating virtual client environment. On passing all the test cases test report is prepared and decision is taken to release the product!So this was a brief outline of process of project life cycle. testing web applications. Here we will see some more details on web application testing with web testing test cases..Lets have first web testing checklist. 1) Functionality Testing 2) Usability testing 3) Interface testing 4) Compatibility testing 5) Performance testing 6) Security testing

1) Functionality Testing:Test for - all the links in web pages, database connection, forms used in the web pages for submitting or getting information from user, Cookie testing. Check all the links:

Test the outgoing links from all the pages from specific domain under test. Test all internal links. Test links jumping on the same pages. Test links used to send the email to admin or other users from web pages. Test to check if there are any orphan pages. Lastly in link checking, check for broken links in all above-mentioned links.

Test forms in all pages: Forms are the integral part of any web site. Forms are used to get information from users and to keep interaction with them. So what should be checked on these forms?

First check all the validations on each field. Check for the default values of fields. Wrong inputs to the fields in the forms. Options to create forms if any, form delete, view or modify the forms.

Lets take example of the search engine project currently I am working on, In this project we have advertiser and affiliate signup steps. Each sign up step is different but dependent on other steps. So sign up flow should get executed correctly. There are different field validations like email Ids, User financial info validations. All these validations should get checked in manual or automated web testing. Cookies testing:Cookies are small files stored on user machine. These are basically used to maintain the session mainly login sessions. Test the application by enabling or disabling the cookies in your browser options. Test if the cookies are encrypted before writing to user machine. If you are testing the session cookies (i.e. cookies expire after the sessions ends) check for login sessions and user stats after session end. Check effect on application security by deleting the cookies. (I will soon write separate article on cookie testing)

Validate your HTML/CSS:If you are optimizing your site for Search engines then HTML/CSS validation is very important. Mainly validate the site for HTML syntax errors. Check if site is crawlable to different search engines. Database testing:Data consistency is very important in web application. Check for data integrity and errors while you edit, delete, modify the forms or do any DB related functionality.Check if all the database queries are executing correctly, data is retrieved correctly and also updated correctly. More on database testing could be load on DB, we will address this in web load or performance testing below. 2) Usability Testing: Test for navigation: Navigation means how the user surfs the web pages, different controls like buttons, boxes or how user using the links on the pages to surf different pages. Usability testing includes: Web site should be easy to use. Instructions should be provided clearly. Check if the provided instructions are correct means whether they satisfy purpose. Main menu should be provided on each page. It should be consistent. Content checking: Content should be logical and easy to understand. Check for spelling errors. Use of dark colors annoys users and should not be used in site theme. You can follow some standards that are used for web page and content building. These are common accepted standards like as I mentioned above about annoying colors, fonts, frames etc. Content should be meaningful. All the anchor text links should be working properly. Images should be placed properly with proper sizes. These are some basic standards that should be followed in web development. Your task is to validate all for UI testingOther user information for user help: Like search option, sitemap, help files etc. Sitemap should be present with all the links in web sites with proper tree view of navigation. Check for all links on the sitemap. Search in the site option will help users to find content pages they are

looking for easily and quickly. These are all optional items and if present should be validated. 3) Interface Testing:The main interfaces are:Web server and application server interface Application server and Database server interface.Check if all the interactions between these servers are executed properly. Errors are handled properly. If database or web server returns any error message for any query by application server then application server should catch and display these error messages appropriately to users. Check what happens if user interrupts any transaction in-between? Check what happens if connection to web server is reset in between? 4) Compatibility Testing:Compatibility of your web site is very important testing aspect. See which compatibility test to be executed:

Browser compatibility Operating system compatibility Mobile browsing Printing options

Browser compatibility:In my web-testing career I have experienced this as most influencing part on web site testing. Some applications are very dependent on browsers. Different browsers have different configurations and settings that your web page should be compatible with. Your web site coding should be cross browser platform compatible. If you are using java scripts or AJAX calls for UI functionality, performing security checks or validations then give more stress on browser compatibility testing of your web application. Test web application on different browsers like Internet explorer, Firefox, Netscape navigator, AOL, Safari, Opera browsers with different versions. OS compatibility: Some functionality in your web application is may not be compatible with all operating systems. All new technologies used in web development like graphics designs, interface calls like different APIs may not be available in all Operating Systems. Test your web application on different operating systems like Windows, Unix, MAC, Linux, Solaris with different OS flavors.

Mobile browsing:This is new technology age. So in future Mobile browsing will rock. Test your web pages on mobile browsers. Compatibility issues may be there on mobile. Printing options:If you are giving page-printing options then make sure fonts, page alignment, page graphics getting printed properly. Pages should be fit to paper size or as per the size mentioned in printing option.5) Performance testing: Web application should sustain to heavy load. Web performance testing should include: Web Load Testing Web Stress Testing Test application performance on different internet connection speed.In web load testing test if many users are accessing or requesting the same page. Can system sustain in peak load times? Site should handle many simultaneous user requests, large input data from users, Simultaneous connection to DB, heavy load on specific pages etc.Stress testing: Generally stress means stretching the system beyond its specification limits. Web stress testing is performed to break the site by giving stress and checked how system reacts to stress and how system recovers from crashes. Stress is generally given on input fields, login and sign up areas.In web performance testing web site functionality on different operating systems, different hardware platforms is checked for software, hardware memory leakage errors,6) Security Testing:Following are some test cases for web security testing: