Due to the technical complexity in programming and the high level of detail, software during its development and maturity stage tends to have some errors. In some cases, they can be easy to solve and in others they can have major consequences. Because of this, in the last decade, quality control in the software industry has advanced rapidly to ensure the quality of software applications.
If you are interested in learning more about software testing, this article will be very useful for you. It explains the general steps or guidelines in the software testing life cycle (STLC).
What is software testing?
Nowadays, software has become an essential part of our daily lives and quality control is a fundamental part of the software development process. This is because it is based on the customer's requirements and allows us to reduce the risks of delivering the functionalities that the customers need. Software testing is done in order to produce a quality and easy-to-use product.
The benefits of quality control
The benefits of quality control are many, but here are the most important:
-Quality: Selling quality products creates a solid reputation. Quality control inspires confidence in the end user.
-Happy customers: the center of every business is a happy customer. With a quality control team, you deliver a valuable product and are more likely to forge long-term relationships.
-Good user experience: quality control cares about the user experience. Nobody likes an application that is not understandable or easy to use.
-Business optimization: By performing quality assurance from an early stage, you can find and solve flaws in lower environments, not higher ones. It is easier and faster to solve a failure in lower environments, and to avoid big losses of money and human resources. In addition, satisfied customers are obtained and retained.
What is the Software Test Life Cycle (STLC)?
The STLC identifies which testing activities should be performed and when they should be performed. This begins when requirements are defined or shared with stakeholders. Each phase has different objectives and deliverables.
-Requirement Analysis: This is the first step in the software testing life cycle. The QA team can interact with various stakeholders to understand the requirements in detail and verify that they have all the information needed for the development of the project.
-Test planning: Here, the entire test strategy is defined. The effort and cost estimates for the test work are made, in addition to defining the objective and scope of the project. The effort and cost will depend on the types of tests to be covered.
-Development of test cases: This phase involves the creation and verification of test cases. The test cases are scenarios that the quality control engineers figure out and propose according to the information they have obtained in the analysis phase. The main thing is that the test cases are well described and easy to understand.
-Test environment configuration: The test environment configuration is done based on the list of hardware and software requirements you have. This is very important because it allows the test team to efficiently execute the test cases. There are many software tools and hardware devices that can be used for software testing.
-Test execution: In this phase you start to execute the test cases based on the planned cases. Test cases that are successfully executed are marked as "passed", while test cases that fail are marked as "failed" and reported to the software developers for further analysis. If a test case is impossible to run due to a defect, it should be marked as "blocked".
-Test cycle closure: this stage involves the evaluation of known problems and quality defects of the code, as well as test coverage, time, cost, quality and other factors. The last stage is to analyze the testing process.
The STLC can be described as a systematic and orderly way to perform software testing. When testing is done correctly, it saves money, increases profits, increases customer satisfaction, ensures reliability, and more. Therefore, this cycle is very important for modern software development.
