There are numerous ways to perform software testing.

Different QA engineers that work in diverse product companies have various views on what first-class software testing means.

We’d like to mention here that there is no correct way of performing web testing.

All IT communities has no (and will not have any) general established way of test execution — and it’s great.

Therefore, if someone asks you during a job interview: “How will you perform testing?” – [highlight dark=”no”]always clarify and ask again about the context to answer this question[/highlight].

In James Bach’s book, the context is defined in the following way:

“When I talk about context, I mean the commonality of a situation affecting the success or failure of an enterprise».

The main principles and criteria of testing in 2021

A common principle of software testing based on this context means: “The importance of the used practice primarily depends on its context.”

In this case, a user approach to testing medical equipment and testing a website of a medical type have different contexts and have different final purposes (equipment can save somebody’s life and the correct work of site will help to find information rapidly).

Though nowadays the Internet can offer numerous books on testing, that can give information on different test processes, you should assess the context of a certain testing situation yourself, to have a chance to analyze if these methodologies have something important, that can be used in the future.

Don’t forget that software testing needs numerous skills and types of activities: communication with other workmates, correct formulating of hypotheses, working with test strategies, development of critical thinking, finding the right people if there is a need for technical help.

You should perceive testing as a special activity that is flexible since it needs to cover different types of information with correct and working test cases.

In general, software testing that is based on context means that QA engineers should do their work in the best way, using the resources they have access to.

Instead of using the best practices, every tester should understand that various practices will work best under certain conditions.

At the end, we’d like to say that the ways of testing here and now should be adaptable and technically flexible, to adjust to different situations.