6 Common Software Testing Techniques You Should NOT Miss (Examples Included)

Software testing is the process of checking the quality, completeness, correctness, and security of the software. In software testing, we will check the software for any errors or bugs. Although software testing is not an easy task for anyone. You can start your career as a software tester if you have a great desire for it. For that, you have to know about software testing and its types, along with the common software testing techniques or methods. Hence, in this post, we will describe the most common techniques along with examples.

Most Common Software Testing Techniques

Here are the most common software testing techniques with examples of functional testing, GUI and usability testing, boundary value testing, compatibility testing, negative testing, and security testing.

1. Functional Testing

In functional testing, we test every function thoroughly by looking for bugs. To perform functional testing, you have to check for the following functionalities against the software.

• Check the functionalities of all the menu items or the links.
• Test whether all the buttons included on each window or popup window work or not.
• Check the form submit functionality by filling the required fields fully or partially.
• If it is a web application, test all the internal and external links.
• Check the validation of each field on a form.
• Check for all the options of the form, such as Add New, Edit, View, Delete, etc.

2. GUI and Usability Testing

In this type of testing, we will scan and check the appearance of the software. The following are the most common techniques for GUI testing.

• Go through all of the pages and observe the appearance of all the elements.
• Check for any broken images that exist.
• Observe the buttons, links, and pages after any action is performed on them.
• Check for any spelling mistakes.

3. Boundary Value Testing

Boundary value testing is also called extreme value testing. Here we will check whether the software throws an error when we supply extreme values to the variables. Here are the most common techniques that can be used to check the software with boundary values.

• Try to submit the form with empty fields.
• Place the value in the input field just above the upper bound.
• Place the value in the input field just below the lower bound.
• Try to place text values in the numeric fields.
• Test by placing any special characters.
• Test by placing a leading zero or negative number.

4. Compatibility Testing

Here we will check the compatibility of any application in different environments. Some of the most commonly used compatibility testing techniques are browser compatibility testing, mobile testing, and printing compatibility testing. For all web applications, browser compatibility testing is the most important.

• If your testing application is a web application, you have to test it on different web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape Navigator, Google Chrome, Safari, Opera, etc. You can also test with different mobile browsers using different devices.
• Some functionality of the application may not work on all OS; test your application on a different operating system, like a different version of Windows, UNIX, MAC, Linux, Solaris, etc.
• Test the application on different screen resolution options by changing it.
• If you are testing a mobile application, test it by installing it on different mobile devices having different software versions.
• You can also check the printing functionality of the application on different devices and browsers.

5. Negative Testing

Negative testing is the type of testing in which the tester intends to break the functionality of the testing software. The following are the most common techniques for negative testing.

• Try to submit the form by entering invalid data, such as entering text in the place of a numeric field like the phone number. The other example may be entering the email address in the incorrect format, entering a negative number in the field, such as item price, or entering any value that is not possible for those fields.
• Try to register again using an already registered email address or username.
• Request a password by clicking on the Forgot password link and providing an email or username that was not registered.
• Try to log in by providing invalid login details.
• If any field limits the form by entering more than 15 characters, try submitting the form by entering more than 15 characters.

6. Security Testing

It is the type of testing where we determine the security of the software product. Here, the testing is done to check how secure the software or application is from internal or external attacks. The following are some techniques that can be used to perform security testing.

• Check whether the user can access the account after logging out using the browser back button.
• Check whether anyone can access web applications’ internal URL directly in the browser address bar without logging in.
• Test whether an unregistered user can ask for a password reset and log in by providing a new password.
• If there is a CAPTCHA used, try to submit a form without entering the CAPTCHA.
• If you are logging in with one user account, try to go to another user account by directly changing the URL.
• Check whether web directories or files are accessible directly by adding or removing some parts of the web address.

Read Next: 10 Crowd Testing Platforms For Online Software Testing