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by Seven Peaks on Jun 8, 2022 5:15:00 PM
And why is it the right job for you?
Are you looking for a career transition into software testing and quality assurance (QA)? Let’s hear it directly as the experienced QA team of Seven Peaks Software answers the burning questions: ‘are software testers in demand?’ and ‘the difference between software quality assurance vs software testing.’
What is software quality assurance?
First of all, software QA (Software Quality Assurance) is a process to avoid mistakes and consequently prevent any potential problems in all software engineering processes, activities, methods in a project. To put it simply, a Software QA engineer’s job is to test how well software or an application works, how well it performs, how easy it is to use, and how safe it is.
Are software testers in demand?
Now that we know what software QA is about, you may be wondering ‘are software testers in demand?’
As of 2022, the demand for software testers and software QA engineers are expected to continually grow by 25% in the next 10 years. The reason for this is due to the increasing use of software products for business. Companies need to make sure their software is reliable and working. Moreover, they need software QA engineers to fix failed software releases as well as improve IT systems.
With the steady presence of technology that is expanding towards every business sector, we can say that the demand for software QA engineers and software testers are only going to rise in the future.
Why is software testing necessary?
People naturally make mistakes. That’s a good enough answer for the question ‘Why is software testing necessary?’ Here are a few advantages you can find for testing software before deliver it to your customer:
- Properly tested software ensures high-performance software operation
- Developing a high-quality product for the final consumer is the goal.
- The process can decrease critical of issue on production like defects or bugs
- So it makes the software more reliable and easy to use
- High-quality software product will save time and money
Software Quality Assurance Vs Software Testing
You might have heard about these two words before, but what is the difference between ‘software quality assurance vs software testing’?
As time goes on, the meanings of two distinct names can become blurred, making it difficult to tell them apart. In this case, it’s the same. They are often used interchangeably, but the responsibilities they entail are vastly different.
| Software Testing | Software Quality Assurance | |
|---|---|---|
| The way to work | Manual/Automation | Manual/Automation |
| Responsibility |
|
|
| Objective | Find out bug and increase critical bug |
|
| Result | Release software with less bug | Release software with high quality |
From the table above, you will see that there are huge differences between software quality assurance vs software testing, especially in their responsibilities, objectives, and the result they deliver.
Software testers are responsible for detecting bugs before users do. Their investigations are then used to generate reports on the software’s performance. Software QA engineers, on the other hand, are more concerned with controlling the product’s life cycle. They have to confirm that the software meets the quality standards or customer agreements specified by the company or organization.
Quick go-through fundamentals of software testing activities
1. Test plan
Test plan is a detailed document that describes:
- The objective of testing
- The scope of testing
- The detailed schedule of the activities you want to perform
- The resources needed such as human and technical.
Importance of test plan
- It helps people outside the test team such as business managers, developers, and customers to get to the point of a project testing.
- Test Plan guides our thinking.
- Important aspects like test estimation, test scope are documented in the Test Plan.
2. Test cases
A Test Case is a set of actions executed to verify a particular feature or functionality of your software application. A test case consists of:
- Test Case #
- Test Case Description
- Test Data
- Test Steps
- Expected Results
- Actual Results
- Test Result
The focus of a test engineer is to compare expected & actual results.
Sample of good test cases
| Test Case # | Descriptions | Test Data | Expected Results | Actual Results | Test Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Check response when valid email & Password is entered |
Nit9@gmail.com Password: 1234590! |
Login should be successful | Login is successful | Pass |
| 2 | Check response when valid email & Password is entered |
Nit9@gmail.com Password: 1234590! |
Login should be successful | Login is not successful | Fail |
| 3 | Check customer login with valid data |
Nit23@gmail.com Password: 12390ki14 |
User should log in into application |
As expected | Pass |
| 4 | Check customer login with invalid data |
Nit23@gmail.com Password: 123908!4a |
User should not log in into application |
As expected | Pass |
Example of bad test cases
| Steps |
|
| Expected Results |
|
3. Test scenarios
A Test Scenario is a statement describing the functionality of the application to be tested. A single test scenario can cover one or more test cases.
Test Scenario Vs Test Case
Test scenarios are rather vague and cover a wide range of possibilities, while Testing is all about being very specific.
Let’s look at an example:
For a Test Scenario, check Login Functionality. There are many possible test cases, including:
- Test Case 1: Check results on entering valid User Id & Password
- Test Case 2: Check results on entering Invalid User ID & Password
- Test Case 3: Check response when a User ID is Empty & Login Button is pressed, and many more cases.
4. Bug report
A bug report contains specific information about what is wrong and what needs to be fixed in software or on a website.
Effective bug report should contain the following:
- Title/Bug ID
- Steps to reproduce a Bug
- Expected Result
- Actual Result
- Visual Proof (screenshots, videos, text) of Bug
- Priority/Severity
5. Manual testing and automation testing
Manual testing
As the name suggests, manual testing needs a human tester to verify or disprove so it involves human observation to find out any glitches. The purpose of manual testing is to catch bugs and feature issues.
Automation testing
In automated testing, there are pre-scripted tests which run automatically. The tests are run to compare the actual results with the expected results. Automated tests run with the help of tools, scripts, and software. It is suitable when the test cases need to run repeatedly for a long duration of time.
Check out our definitive guide on how to choose between manual testing and automation testing
Quick go-through fundamentals of software testing activities
To be a successful software QA engineer, you should develop the following traits:
- Strong attention in details
- Observation and questions
- Think out of the box
- Diligent and practice
- Good listener