From: Software Testing Help <shindevijaykr@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:44 AM
Subject: Software Testing Help - Latest Articles
To: for.u.nik@gmail.com
Software Testing Help - Latest Articles |
| Thinking Out of the Box While Testing Software! Posted: 04 Jul 2011 11:18 AM PDT
This is a phrase that you come across dozens of times a day, 'Creative Thinking' or 'Out of the Box Thinking'. Do we know what it actually means when we say 'Thinking out of the Box'? As per Wikipedia: "Thinking outside the box is to think differently, unconventionally or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to novel or creative thinking" But the above definition could be extended when we relate it to our field, Software Testing. When we step into the field of software testing the first thing we are taught or we learn are the Two Boxes, a white box and a black box. Since then all we do is either black box or white box testing. This has limited our mind from thinking beyond the boxes. Did we ever think that going beyond these could help us in gaining a higher pace towards a solid career in software testing? Below we will be discussing a few techniques which I follow and many of my Mentors follow as well,
Rapid Fire Test Case Creation: This technique, as the name suggests is about rapidly creating test cases. The first thing that comes to our mind when we talk about test case creation is a Requirement Document, an Excel Sheet and some guidelines provided by the organization. For once keep aside all the things, get an idea about what you think you are about to test , Pick up a Pen and a Paper and write as many scenarios you can write within 60 seconds. Repeat the process till you are not able to think of more scenarios or ideas and finally review them. You will definitely be surprised by the number of ideas you already have without looking into the requirement document.
Cross Testing Ideas(Analogy): While testing an application, treat it like an entirely different application which you have used before and then start testing. Doing this you might come across issues which are not part of the requirements but is just a common/generic feature which should be present and often overlooked. For Example: If you are testing a portal, use it like you use your E mail program or any application which you worked on before and see how the application behaves. I remember exploring a critical defect using this technique. I was testing a secure login of a finance application and tried altering the URL and navigating to a different page (which was a defect in my last tested application). By doing this I was able to bypass the login mechanism using Secure ID and this was neither a test case nor any other team member thought that this could be one of the scenarios.
Reverse or Backward Testing Ideas: What is the normal work flow you follow while testing? Isn't it the exact same steps which were used while developing the application, Requirements >> Unit Cases >> Integration Testing >> System Testing or any other approach? The minds of the people working on the development of an application are bound to think in the direction which will cover more positive testing. The End User might not do the same every time that is the reason why Production Defects or UAT Defects exists even after extensive rounds of Unit Tests, Integration test and System Tests. For Example: Requirement says you can upload a file which does not exceed file size of 10 MB. The most testers will follow uploading a 1MB, 2MB, 3 MB and so on till 10 MB is reached or error message is displayed. Why not start with 10MB and then try 11MB and then 9 MB. This example is nothing but a BVA but how many of us have tried using BVA in scenarios other then an input box.
Questioning: Ideally every QA engineer should know the purpose of a requirement. Putting up questions will help a QA Engineer to refine his purpose of testing. If a QA Engineer is good at questioning he/she will be good at testing by default. You need to make sure none of the questions how so ever small or silly is ignored. And in turn questioning will also enhance the domain knowledge of the person performing the testing.
Researching: Researching proves to be very beneficial before starting the testing, just be aware of the issues which other people faced while doing similar assignment. Say you have to start a cross browser testing as one of your assignments. Before starting the tests researching the issues which other people encountered while using the same browser will help you find defects before starting the actual testing.
Pause: an ice breaker Testing sometimes could be a monotonous process and the ideas may begin to saturate, you might start feeling that none of the solutions are working out or you might even run out of ideas. In such cases an effective Pause can do a lot of wonders and could help you kick start from where you left. A Pause could be a Coffee or simply gazing out of the window. Apart from being Creative, timing, speed of implementation of ideas and their execution are of high importance. You might get an excellent idea but what if it is too late to implement it. Listed above are just a few ideas which will help you generate more ideas in turn. ***** This is a guest post by Mohit Khatri. Author is specialized in testing Banking Applications, Automation Testing Frameworks and Security Testing. If you want to guest post on this blog, read the guidelines here. If you have more creative techniques which you think have helped you at any point feel free to share below. ---------------------        |
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