Checklists and Tools for Testing Your Web Application

1. Functional Testing: 

It involves testing the functionality of an app’s features, such as navigation, forms, and user accounts. Functional testing includes:

• Unit Testing: Testing individual units or components of software is known as unit testing. During the coding phase, developers conduct unit tests to ensure each unit of code performs as expected. The goal is to verify the correctness of a particular section of code. Units can be functions, methods, procedures, modules, or objects. Unit testing includes. 

Smoke Testing: Smoke testing checks the basic functionality of a website or application to ensure that it is stable enough for comprehensive testing. It involves a quick and simple test of the most important features to identify any major issues before proceeding with in-depth testing. 

Sanity Testing: It is performed when there are minor changes to code or functionality of an application build. Its purpose is to ensure that the changes have been successfully implemented and are not causing any bugs. A build that fails this test will be rejected before more thorough testing can occur. It saves both time and money.

• Integration Testing: This type of testing is done when different coders create different programs and help identify any malfunctions in their integration. It can also be called ‘I & T’ (Integration and Testing), ‘String Testing’, or even ‘Thread Testing’. Integration testing includes.

White Box Testing: An internal software testing technique based on examining the application’s code and design. It is also known as Clear box, Open box, Transparent box, Code-based, and Glass box testing, and contrasts with Blackbox testing which focuses on external user experience. This approach uses the concept of seeing through a “box” into the application’s inner workings. 

Black Box Testing: This type of testing focuses on external behavior and functionality, without requiring knowledge of the internal code structure or implementation details. Since it is based solely on specified requirements and specifications, it is also known as Behavioral Testing. By focusing on inputs and outputs, Black Box Testing enables a comprehensive assessment of an application’s effectiveness. 

User Acceptance Testing: Once functional, integration, and system testing have been executed, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is the final stage of assessment. It is intended to verify that the software fulfills the requirements from end-user or client’s perspective. UAT does not include grammar accuracy or system-related tests – its main goal is to validate complete business processes. As it requires a production-like data configuration, this type of evaluation is usually conducted in a distinct testing environment with two or more end-users involved in the process.

• Regression Testing: Intended to confirm that recent program or code changes have not impaired existing features. It involves the re-execution of certain already completed test cases, to make certain that current functionality still works correctly after any new updates have been implemented. The aim of this form of testing is to verify that no negative effects have occurred due to the changes made and that nothing has been disrupted in the old code.

2. Non-Functional Testing:

Testing non-functional aspects such as performance, usability, and reliability of software applications is known as non-functional testing. A non-functional parameter is explicitly used to test the readiness of a system, which is never addressed by functional testing. Non-Functional testing follows.

• Performance Testing: Performance Testing is used for testing the speed, response time, stability, reliability, scalability, and resource usage of a software application under a particular workload. A performance test identifies and eliminates software application performance bottlenecks. The focus is on:
  • An application’s speed decides how quickly it responds. 
  • An application’s maximum user load is determined by this parameter. 
  • Figures out whether the application is stable under varying loads

In performance testing, we have

Load Testing: An application’s performance is tested under a specific load during load testing. The load test determines how the application behaves when it is accessed by multiple users. Before deploying software applications, load testing is designed to identify performance bottlenecks and ensure stability and smooth operation. 

Stress Testing: Stress testing aims to measure software on its robustness and error-handling capabilities under hefty load conditions and ensure that software doesn’t crash under crunch situations. It tests beyond standard operating points and evaluates how the software works under extreme conditions. 

Endurance Testing: The purpose of endurance testing is to evaluate the software application’s capability to withstand extended loads over a long period of time. It is usually done towards the tail end of the performance testing cycle. To carry out this type of test, an external load like user actions or Internet traffic may be applied, making it distinct from load tests which typically last for a few hours. Consequently, this kind of testing can also be named Capacity Testing. 

Spike Testing: Software application is tested with extreme traffic load increments and decrements. During spike testing, a software application is evaluated under sudden increases and decreases in user load, and recovery time is determined after a spike in user load.  

Volume Testing: During volume testing, the software is subjected to a massive amount of data. This method is also referred to as flood testing. The purpose of volume testing is to evaluate the performance of the system by increasing the number of records in the database. The impact of high-volume data on response time and system behavior can be studied using volume testing. 

Scalability testing: Scalability testing evaluates the performance of a system or network when changing the number of user requests. Its purpose is to determine the system’s capability to meet increasing needs in terms of user traffic, data volume, transaction frequency, etc.

• Security Testing: In this, the website is secured against potential threats and vulnerabilities. It involves identifying and assessing security risks, testing security controls, and validating the effectiveness of security measures. Security testing helps to prevent data breaches, unauthorized access, and other security incidents that can damage a website’s reputation and compromise its user’s sensitive information. Security testing follows.

Vulnerability Scanning: Software that scans systems against known vulnerability signatures.  

Security Scanning: Explores potential network and system weaknesses and provides solutions to reduce any associated risk. 

Penetration Scanning: Simulates malicious hacking attempts by analyzing systems for vulnerabilities. 

Risk Assessment: Gauges the security threats within an organization, classifying them as low, medium, or high, while offering controls and mechanisms to lower the levels of risk.  

Security Auditing: To complete a thorough audit of applications and operating systems, Security Auditing utilizes either manual or automated methods to review code line by line. 

Ethical Hacking: The goal is to expose security flaws in organization software. 

Posture Assessment: Posture Assessment comprises combining security scanning, Ethical Hacking, and Risk Assessments to measure an organization’s entire security stance.

• Compatibility Testing: A compatibility test checks whether your software works on different types of hardware, operating systems, applications, networks, or mobile devices. 
• Usability Testing: Usability Testing is a technique used to determine a software product’s user-friendliness. A limited number of end-users interact with the application, which helps in detecting possible usability issues. The aim of usability testing is to evaluate how well users can use the application, how accessible the controls are, and whether it meets its intended purpose. 
• Database Testing: Validating the accuracy of data stored in the backend database, checking for data integrity, data consistency, and functionality of database operations. It also involves testing the security of the database and ensuring that the data is properly backed up.

Web Application Testing tools:

Functional Testing Tools: Selenium, UFT, Tosca, Protractor, Katalon. 
Usability Testing Tools: UserZoom, User Testing, Crazy Egg, Loop11. 
Compatibility Testing Tools: LambdaTest, Experitest, BrowserStack, SauceLabs. 
Security Testing Tools: Burp Suite Pro, IBM App Scan, Nessus, Qualys, Metasploit. 
Performance Testing Tools: LoadRunner, Apache JMeter, k6, Silk Performer, Neo Load. 
Data Base Testing Tools: DBUnit, Rider, HammerDB.

A comprehensive checklist should be followed to ensure that web application is tested for any bugs or security flaws. The right tools for web application testing can assist you to reduce the risks associated with launching a faulty product, so testing should always remain a priority. Talk to experts for guidance.