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In this video we’ll be covering a lot of different types of tests that you can use to really give your company a high quality product. This video will mostly be a list of different techniques you can explore without getting too in-depth, so check out some of the resources we’ve provided below for further reading.
Definitions:
- Automated tests: We've gone over this previously, but it's important to note again that this is where a lot of the industry is heading. These are basically automated checks to see that the software performs correctly and can be run many times faster than people can manually test.
- Negative testing: Looking for errors in the code and deliberately testing for them. Errors should be helpful to the user and should tell them both what they did wrong and how to resolve it.
- 404 (bad URL) pages are a common thing to look for here. Also trying to access parts of an application when not authenticated.
- Security and Penetration testing: There are many threats to the security of your server, so being proactive and at least keeping ahead of the most common attacks will help prevent your server from being compromised and your or your user's data stolen. Check out the OWASP website for today's most common attacks and how to prevent them.
- Crowd-sourcing: This is a little newer, but it is a good way to simulate load on a server (like a performance test) in a more realistic way, using real people. You can also more easily find common user confusion issues or just common bugs that maybe you or the developers haven't spotted yet using the wisdom of crowds.
In this video we'll be
covering a lot of different
0:00
types of tests that you can use to give
your company a high quality product.
0:03
This video will mostly be a list of
different techniques that you can
0:07
explore without getting too in-depth.
0:12
So I encourage you to look into some
of the resources we provided below for
0:15
further reading.
0:19
We should really talk about the biggest
area of expansion in quality assurance,
0:21
which is automated testing.
0:25
We've gone over this topic previously,
but it's important to note again
0:28
that this is where a lot of
the industry is heading currently.
0:32
Automated tests are basically automated
checks to see that the software
0:36
performs correctly and that new
additions don't break old features.
0:40
Instead of manually running
the test we created earlier for
0:45
the RSVP app that enters some text and
checks that the card has the same text.
0:48
Why not automate that in a browser
testing tool like Selenium?
0:54
Now with the push of a button,
we can run this test over and over again.
0:58
This is the idea behind automated testing.
1:02
If an engineer makes a change
that breaks the test,
1:05
we know about it right away and
can fix it.
1:08
Many automated tests every time
a developer pushes some new code, and
1:11
some systems will even
report bugs automatically.
1:15
[SOUND] These tests that are basically
run by robots free us up to do
1:18
more important tasks,
like writing more automated tests.
1:23
Another type of testing that
you should start looking into,
1:27
especially when writing new tests,
is to explore negative tests.
1:30
These are tests that deliberately try
to break the software and look for
1:35
appropriate errors.
1:38
Think of it this way.
1:41
When you do something
wrong in the software,
1:42
do you want the error to happen in the
background and not tell you hwo tofix it,
1:44
or do you want to see a helpful
message telling you what to do?
1:49
You'll probably remember this
from our bug report example.
1:53
In our RSVP app, when we hit the Submit
button without typing anything,
1:56
the app simply creates an empty card.
2:01
What it should do is put a nice
red outline around the box and
2:04
tell us that we need to fill in
that box before we can hit Submit.
2:08
That would be much more helpful.
2:12
Some other examples of negative tests are
looking for bad URL pages in your website.
2:14
Simply type in a phony address in the
browser to your site to see what happens.
2:20
I'm on the team Treehouse
site right now and
2:25
I'm just gonna type in
badurl up at the top.
2:27
I got a nice 404 page, page not found.
2:31
What happens on your application though?
2:35
Does it give you just a white page?
2:38
Does it give you a large error stack trace
that isn't very helpful to the user?
2:40
Or does it return a helpful 404 page that
2:44
lets the user know that
this page does not exist?
2:47
Security testing is a huge aspect in the
QA world, especially in web applications.
2:51
Many huge, high profile security breaches
have been in the news in the last few
2:57
years, such as those at Yahoo,
Target and Equifax.
3:01
There are many threats to
the security of your server.
3:05
So being proactive and at least keeping
ahead of most common attacks will help
3:08
prevent your server from being
compromised or your users' data stolen.
3:13
If you're pretty new to security testing,
3:18
it's important to pay attention to tech
news and listen for issues as they happen.
3:20
OWASP, or
the Open Web Application Security Project,
3:25
maintains a top 10 vulnerabilities list
that you can check against to make sure
3:29
that you're always keeping these issues
in mind during regression testing.
3:33
I also recommend taking
a look at Burp Suite,
3:38
which includes a suite of tools that you
can use to test for vulnerabilities.
3:41
But I'll admit the learning
curve is a little steep here.
3:45
A newer practice that's worth looking
into is Crowd Source Testing.
3:48
This is giving a handful of test
cases to a crowd sourcing service
3:52
that will pay a number of users to
execute those tests against your app.
3:56
This is both a good way to simulate load
on a server, which we'll talk about more
4:00
in the next video, and it's also a great
way to get more realistic user testing.
4:04
You'll more easily find
common user problems and
4:10
identify workflow issues
with this approach.
4:13
Getting people who have probably never
seen this software before to use it is
4:17
a great way to take a completely
unbiased approach to testing.
4:21
Since it's a pretty broad subject,
I've save one more topic for
4:25
a separate video, which is low testing.
4:29
The next video will cover it in depth.
4:32
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