Web testing processes and its challenges
We are in the E-age where every one wants to be connected with the network. Now it has become obvious to look for the web site URL for any business of any size to look for information about their businesses and contact information etc.
Large businesses are now realizing the enormous potential of Internet in reaching markets, which they never had access before. Eventually, new e-businesses are emerging everyday with innovative ideas on modern technologies.
The enterprises are gradually migrating to Web applications from enterprise solutions due to the promising trend in the IT industry. The reason being that they have to cope up with the wide network of their businesses and wider network of their customers.
Web testing being a part of the Web development, faces a number of challenges. Many of them are caused by the various external factors and also by the nature and characteristics of the Internet itself. Here we attempt to capture some of them, mostly the major challenges in web testing in today's scenario.
The below listed are the few of the major challenges that every testing team faces.
- Dead line pressure
- Frequent changes
- Compatibility
- Performance
- Stress testing the sites
- Security
- Data Integrity
- Re Usability of Test design
- Test Automation
Dead line pressure: Every one needs the site on “yesterday”, and deadline pressure leaves the project with no space for testing the application. All that the team can do is to haplessly look at the site going live with so many unearthed bugs.
Frequent changes: It is very common in web development, after completion of the development and testing, the client will simply say that he does not want a feature; module or he wants an additional feature or module. Web testers have to carry out the tedious process of tracking changes and dwell a lot in analyzing the modules that are affected by these changes. Based on this, they also have to redesign test cases, add test cases and test them with all the inter-related components repeatedly.
Compatibility: Nowadays it is very common that the client asks for the Web application that has to work in anything from Windows OS to Mac OS, from Web browser to Mobiles, from Internet Explorer to Safari browsers. This has made the testing more challenging than before.
Performance: “The more the net penetration is taking place the more net traffic is congested”. And now no visitor of a site will wait for a page to load if that exceeds more than 15 seconds, if your site takes more than this time, surely you are out of the business. The Visitor will shut your site once for all. Measuring the performance of the site in terms of server response time for the request has become more vital than before.
Stress testing the sites: Similarly e-commerce sites like Amazon, e-bay get more traffic during the festive times like Christmas, that stresses the server several times than normal times, hence Web testers have to anticipate the amount of traffic in those peak times and stress test the site with untenable loads to simulate those scenarios in order to ensure that the site will not get down and it can handle without any down time.
Since any down time may cause non-compensatory business loss to the Site. At a time when the DotComs have started showing profits in their account books they cannot afford to loose even a penny.
Security: “Is your site Hacker Proof?” - Another major challenge web testers have to face is ensuring the site as “hacker proof” and ensuring all the transactions taking place in the Site are secure. Web testing has to ensure all the data transmitted through the site should be safe and secure.
Data Integrity: The most vulnerable area in E-businesses is the collection and storage of highly valuable customer data. Unless the data stored are correct and accurate the business may run into troubles. Web testing should ensure this data integrity wherever data are used.
Re Usability of Test design: For any project, if the project lifecycle time has to be cut short, more reusable components have to be deployed. Similarly, in Web testing also more reusable test cases should be used as far as possible. However in web applications since every project differs in all aspects of requirements, the scope for reusability will be very much limited.
Test Automation: Automation is the one area where we can reduce the test execution time and can perform regression testing after doing any changes to the code or enhancements. Where as in web applications Creating of test scripts and using them is more challenging than for other applications. Though various tools are available in the market, still web testers are striving hard to find a perfect solution to this.
Though there are many challenges in Web testing, they provide a good opportunity to find a better solution to over come them and achieve better quality.