Software testing is a phase of the program development lifecycle that is used to ensure that the software is accurate and meets the requirements. Testing is a necessary component of every software development effort.
In essence, software testing seeks to address the following question: How does one guarantee that software performs as expected and does not perform in unexpected ways? The main objective of software testing is to gain sufficient confidence in the program's ability to generate the right output for a given input.
A critical point to remember while learning about software testing is that testing does not automatically enhance product quality. Or that a high level of testing does not always imply good quality software. Testing is a critical indication of software quality, giving critical input to the developers who developed the program, enabling them to take the required actions to correct any issues discovered during testing.
This article discusses the commonly asked interview questions for a Software Tester job by the interviewer. Here are the top 15 software interview questions and answers that you can look into.
Software testing is used at various stages of the software development process according to the methodology being used. Waterfall and Agile are the two primary methods used in software development.
Requirements are collected initially in a conventional waterfall approach of software development. The information is then transformed into a specification document, which serves as the basis for the software's design and development. Finally, after the whole software system has been created, testers perform testing towards the completion of the software development life cycle.
Agile software development is iterative in nature. You test the program concurrently with its development. The developers create a small piece of functionality based on the requirements. The testers put it through its paces and collect customer feedback, which helps shape future development.
It is difficult to test software exhaustively or to demonstrate the lack of errors, regardless of how precise your test method is.
An extensive test that uncovers hundreds of mistakes does not always mean that it has uncovered them all. Numerous more mistakes may have been overlooked by the test. The absence of errors does not imply that there are no mistakes or that the program is flawless. This may easily imply that testing is useless or incomplete. To demonstrate that a program works, all potential inputs and their combinations must be tested.
Consider a simple software that accepts a ten-character string as input. To test it against all potential inputs, you would need to enter 2610 names, which is impossible. Due to the impracticality of exhaustive testing, your best approach as a tester is to choose the test cases that are most likely to uncover errors. Testing is adequate when you have sufficient trust in the program to release it and presume it will function as anticipated.
You may test software in a variety of ways. Certain kinds of testing are performed by software developers, while others are performed by professional quality assurance personnel. The following are several distinct types of software testing, each with a short explanation.
Developers are ineffective testers. The following are some reasons why:
This does not imply, however, that developers should not test software prior to submitting it to the tester. Developer testing aids in the discovery of many bugs caused by code errors. These are difficult to detect since testers do not always have access to the source code.
The objective of every software tester is to uncover as many bugs and problems as possible in the system so that the customers do not have to. As a result, a competent software tester should have an uncanny ability to notice little details. They should be familiar with the program they are testing and should push every element of it to its boundaries in order to discover problems that are difficult to find during normal usage.
It is critical to have domain expertise for the application. Without a comprehensive understanding of the particular issues that the program is attempting to address, a tester will be unable to test them properly.
When testing, a competent tester should have the end-user in mind. Empathy for the end-user enables the tester to verify that the program is useful and accessible. Simultaneously, the tester should possess fundamental programming abilities that enable them to think like a developer, allowing them to see typical programming errors such as null-references, out-of-memory errors, and so on.
A tester's ability to communicate, both written and verbally, is critical. A tester will often be required to communicate with both developers and management. They should be able to communicate to developers the defects and issues discovered during testing. A competent tester should submit a comprehensive bug report for each discovered problem, including all the information necessary for a developer to resolve the issue. They should be able to make a compelling argument to management if they are apprehensive about releasing the product due to unsolved problems.
Black-box testing is a subset of functional testing. As the name implies, it is concerned with the functional needs of the program rather than with its underlying implementation. A functional requirement is a specification of the system's necessary behavior in terms of its input and output.
It verifies software to functional needs or specifications but disregards non-functional characteristics such as performance, usability, and dependability.
Functional testing attempts to address the following specific questions:
Testing metrics offer a high-level overview of how the project is progressing and the next actions for management or engineers.
The following are some metrics generated from a log of tests and failures:
Test-Driven Development (TDD) is a widely used software development method that was originally presented by Kent Beck in his 1999 book of the same name.
TDD requires a developer working on a feature to first create a failing test and then write just adequate code to pass that test. Once they've created a successful test, they add another failing test and then write just the code necessary to pass the failing test. This cycle is repeated until the developer has completed the functionality. If the code under test is dependent on external resources like a database, files, or the network, you may mock those resources to isolate the code.
Several benefits of TDD include the following:
As the name implies, automated testing, often known as test automation, is the execution of tests programmatically. The tester writes code to accomplish the following activities using an automation tool or software such as Selenium.
Once a test is automated, it may be performed as often as desired to see whether any new code has broken it. It helps to increase efficiency to do additional high-value tests, such as exploratory testing, which aids in the discovery of bugs that an automated test might overlook.
Automated testing is advantageous for repeated testing with frequently changing inputs. Humans get fatigued and bored after repeatedly doing the same tasks and receiving the same results. When you're testing a feature for the twentieth time, it's easy to make errors. Software is much more adept at doing repeated operations without becoming fatigued or making errors than a human operator is.
A software bug is a mistake in the program that causes incorrect results to be produced. A software tester conducts tests on the program in order to identify bugs.
Bugs may be induced by a variety of factors, including poor design, careless programming, a lack of version control, or miscommunication. Hundreds or thousands of flaws are introduced into the system throughout development. The tester's objective is to uncover such bugs
Regardless of your position, you may discover a bug in a variety of ways. While developing the program, the developer may become aware of a bug in another module that was created by another developer or by themselves. As part of a regular testing procedure, the tester actively seeks for bugs. Finally, when the program is in production, users will be able to view the bugs.
All bugs, regardless of how they are discovered, are tracked in a bug tracking system. A triage team prioritizes the bugs and sends them to a software developer to be fixed. After resolving the issue, the developer checks in the code and marks the bug as ready for testing. Once a bug is ready for testing, it is sent to the tester, who verifies that the program has been repaired. If it is, then the case has been closed. If not, they assign it to the same developer along with detailed instructions on how to recreate the problem. Popular bug-tracking solutions include BugZilla, FogBugz, and others.
Trivia:
Admiral Grace Hopper identified the first software flaw on September 9, 1947. They discovered an insect trapped in a relay when they opened a faulty piece of gear.
Several frequent errors include the following:
Each software program has a certain user in mind. A user story elucidates the user's motives and the goals for which they are utilizing the product. Finally, it demonstrates how the user interacts with the program. It is unconcerned with the intricacies of design and execution.
A user story focuses on the value given to the end-user rather than on the precise inputs and anticipated results.
The tester develops user personas with actual names and attributes and attempts to replicate real-world interaction with the program in a user narrative. A user story often aids in the discovery of hidden issues that are frequently missed by more rigorous testing methods.
A test environment is a server/computer on which a tester conducts tests. It is distinct from a development machine in that it attempts to replicate the hardware on which the program will operate in production.
When a new variant of the software is made available, the tester automatically upgrades the test environment and runs the regression tests suite. Once it succeeds, the tester moves on to new functionality testing.
Static testing is a method for evaluating software without running it. It includes doing code walkthroughs, code reviews, and peer reviews, as well as performing static analysis of the source code using advanced tools such as eslint and StyleCop. Static testing is often carried out throughout the software development process.
When addressing interview questions on software testing, don't forget to be precise. Answers that are concise yet high quality show expertise and knowledge.