Software testing is the process of studying the expected behavior of the system and the actual one, the compliance of its performance with the conditions prescribed in the documentation, as well as monitoring the operation of software at all stages of testing. Software Life Cycle is a period from the moment of creation until the end of support by the company that maintained this product.

Software Testing Stages

These are separate parts of the software testing process that have an end goal and are performed during the software development life cycle.

A QA specialist should be involved in the software development process. This helps to identify errors and localize them in the early stages of development.

Requirements Analysis

The conditions and technical specifications of the product are considered in the reference documentation. When testing, a QA specialist must identify vulnerabilities that can cause an error, as well as possible risks.

The Design Process

It is the stage of communication between the user and the system. When testing, a QA engineer checks existing software prototypes for compliance with the client’s requirements, described in the documentation, considering the correct display of visual elements and ease of use.

Development

This is a stage during which unit, integration, and system testing are performed.

Unit testing:

• testing of separate elements (modules) of the software;
• whether the code change caused new errors occurrence;
• fixing detected bugs in the code without technical presentation of information about them in the documentation.

Integration testing:

• checks the logic of the interrelation of the parts of the code when combined and interacting with each other;
• detects errors when combining modules, if any;
• identifies links between modules;
• identifies links between equipment;
• identifies links between different systems.

System testing:

• functional testing of all components and modules;
• testing for compliance with functional (determining whether the system meets the functional requirements specified in the terms of reference) and non-functional (testing of non-functional parameters) requirements;
• revealing irrational use of system resources;
• improper operation of the functionality;
• possible failure, etc.

Software Testing and Debugging Process

This is the process by which QA companies find and eliminate software bugs:

• full interface testing;
• verification of the product functionality;
• documentation of detected bugs in the bug tracker;
• regression testing;
• product quality assessment (the actual result must meet customer requirements).

Operation and Support:

• new bugs appear after the product is released and software is updated;
• bugs arise related to end-user operation;
• post-release bugs are reported to the development team as bug reports, and these defects cab be fixed immediately or in the next software version.

To deliver a quality product, the testing process must cover all stages of the development lifecycle; analyze and monitor the entire process, which contributes to the effectiveness of bug fixing.