It may pain any managers, designers and developers to hear it but software testing is crucial at every part of a product’s development.

From the initial conception, to the design and development and even the finished product testing should occur to keep the product on task for completion.

ISEB/ ISTQB Foundation Software Testing Training teaches delegates about testing throughout the entire software life cycle.

Testing at the last stage is inadvisable as any necessary changes will mean running the product back through the entire process.

Testing should be done at four stages:

• Planning
• Design
• Development
• End product

The below diagram shows how a problem at each stage of the software cycle can affect the final product:

Testing During the Planning Stage

The Design and Development stages may be spot on, but if the wrong requirements are introduced during the planning stage then the wrong product will be produced. Ensuring that all the correct requirements are in place is vital to design and development of the correct product. Read the rest of "Software Testing Throughout the Process"

News stories like this show how important software testing is for security. Software defects have the potential to cost a business far more than its reputation. Hackers can take advantage of software defects to blackmail businesses for financial gain. Here’s an example of this practice in real life from our guest blogger Alex Smith…

A group of hackers has attempted to blackmail security software company, Symantec in exchange for keeping stolen source code private.

The hackers released a batch of emails to the public that were sent from the FBI posing as Sam Thomas a representative of Symantec.

Officers from the FBI offered the hackers $50,000 or £32,000 in return for the stolen source code. Since negotiations have broken down more source code has been released which is obviously a major concern for Symantec and their customers.

Symantec have been working closely with the FBI after being contacted by the hackers in January.

Our Software Testing Training courses are all accredited to provide delegates with an industry recognised software testing qualification. Get a foot in the door of the software testing industry by learning the best practice approach through ISEB/ ISTQB courses.

It is believed that the hackers are affiliated with the Lords of Dharmaraja who are part of the hacking group Anonymous. Read the rest of "Hackers Attempt To Blackmail Symantec"

As businesses look for software that meets the demands of a modern working environment, they are increasingly using cloud computing and mobile technology. Cloud computing really took off in 2011:

Even the best Software Testers don’t pick up every problem and sometimes a bug that is deemed unimportant is picked up by users as a critical issue. Releasing a product that seems unfinished into the public domain may seem counter-productive but it is known to work. Often businesses do this with beta testing – only releasing to a small number of users with warnings that the product is unfinished and an expectation of feedback. Google released almost all of their products early and then makes changes as they go. This means that the finished product is always better at the time of full release than one with no user testing. However, testing is still a critical element of releasing new software and so software testers are still in high demand. Without professional testing, product launches are likely to be hampered by issues unnoticed during development. The best testers are trained testers so please enquire about our accredited ISEB/ISTQB Software Testing Training courses by browsing the websites or calling us on 01273 622272 for more information.

If you have taken the time to research some business terminology then you will probably be familiar with the term ‘iteration cycle’. The idea behind this is that you release your product out into the wild, see how it does, and then improve on it based on the feedback you get.

So in other words, you might release a website, notice that no one is staying on it very long or visiting your other pages, and so improve your navigation and layout. That’s one cycle – release, feedback, edit. Read the rest of "Iteration Cycles and Feedback"

Silicon Beach Training provide a host of great mobile development courses, including iPhone App training, Android App Training and Mobile Web Design courses. However, every new app needs to be tested thoroughly before launch.  With a wide variety of operating systems, screen resolutions and hardware combinations desktop software testing needs to accommodate for. This, however, is a mere drop in the ocean when compared to the multitude of mobile platforms and smartphones that need to be tested before launching an app.

With apps becoming increasingly popular and complex the need for testing has never been higher, but with so many smartphone platforms, including iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile (and then there’s the tablets!), each of which running different software versions, button layouts, screen sizes and sporting different hardware, covering all of your bases is becoming a time consuming and expensive task.

As well as the software and hardware differences between devices you also have to take into account the number of mobile phone networks that the devices operate on. This makes the number of unique combinations to test vast! So buying one of every type of phone isn’t a practical solution. Especially as there are over 350 types of Android device alone!

Luckily there are other ways which when used will bring your testing time and expenditure down considerably. Here are seven of our favourites: Read the rest of "App Testing for Smartphones and Mobiles"

The ISEB/ISTQB Foundation Certificate in Software Testing is the industry standard certification for software testers. The qualification allows testers to demonstrate their skills to employers and for businesses to show the proficiency of their software testing team.

The qualification is recognised internationally and so opens up testers and businesses to a wealth of new opportunities world wide. It also allows for multi-national projects as everybody is working with a common understanding of software testing.

You will find more information on the course and how to book at our ISEB/ISTQB Foundation in Software Testing Training course page.

What you need to know before starting the ISEB/ISTQB Foundation course

Who is the course for? Read the rest of "ISEB/ISTQB Foundation in Software Testing – What You Need to Know"

Previously, we have written about Problem Steps Recorder in Windows 7, a free program within Windows. This time we’re going to give an insight into iCheckWebsite - a website testing tool. iCheckWebsite is a simple but effective tool for checking websites with different packages available (free for individual users) depending on the amount of testing required.

If you would like to learn more about Software Testing then have a look at the Software Testing Training courses we provide.

Website testing tools are useful bits of kit as you can schedule checks to make sure your website is free of any problems and ensure that you are on top of SEO, accessibility and quality related issues. Website testing is essential to maintaining a quality website, especially if you aren’t technologically sound. iCheckWebsite  is simple to use and provides some great improvements and checks.

Three of the main checks performed are: Quality, Accessibility and SEO which are all very important aspects of maintaining a website.

Read the rest of "Website Testing – iCheckWebsite"

Last week we published 5 Software Testing tips provided by our trainers. Continuing the theme – here are 5 more software testing tips that we hope you will find practical and useful for you when planning application tests.

If you’re interested in gaining an industry recognised Software Testing Qualification, check out our range of Software Testing Training courses, including the Advanced Certifications such as Advanced Software Testing Training for Test Analysts and Advanced Software Testing Training for Technical Test Analysts.

5 More Software Testing Tips

1) Be positive about finding errors!:
Begin the software testing process with the intention of finding bugs! This way you will be sure to find all of the errors (major and minor). If you start expecting there to be NO bugs there’s a danger you’ll miss the smaller errors.

2) Group your test cases together for regression testing:
This will help speed up the process of your manual regression testing phase.

3) Ensure test cases are provided for developers BEFORE coding
Let the developers do some of your work for you by providing details of the test cases to them before they start work. This way they will be more likely to develop a quality application with fewer bugs for you to find in testing. This will mean less time debugging later.

4) If response time is important in your application – performance testing is VERY important!
Carry our thorough performance testing on any software where a fast response to the user is paramount. This is too often ignored in manual testing as large volumes of data are required to carry out proper performance tests If you can’t  create test data manually, write scripts to generate random test data (or get one of the developers to do it!)

5) Do NOT get programmers to test their own code
You CAN save time by providing test cases to developers before they start (tip 3!) – however programmers should NEVER be asked to thoroughly test their own code. Software Testers can’t ask developers to release products for testing (that’s your job!) Programmers should be allowed to take their own time. Everyone can contribute to estimating the time required for testing. This is a standard Agile approach

More tips to come soon – watch this space!!

For those who doubted our generosity in providing tips for Software Testers (shame on you!) – here are 5 MORE top tips from our Software Testing trainers.

These are the sort of tips that are not necessarily part of the syllabus in accredited Software Testing courses, but are the sort of ‘war stories’ our trainer have to pass on from experience, that can be useful to help testers refine the way they work:

5 More Software Testing Tips

1) Don’t stop at requirement testing:
Test all software applications for what they are NOT supposed to do – as well as testing the requirements.

2) Make a Note of Observations:
Keep a file somewhere (text file, word doc, even a piece of paper!!!) and make a note of all new concepts and terms that you discover while testing (we all keep learning, even long after we’ve been qualified!) When you’re preparing your final test release report these observations will all be useful/

3) Use previous bug graphs:
A bug graph plots the number of bugs found against time for each module of your application. Keeping a bug graph will help you to predict where the most buggy parts of your applications are likely to be.

4) Don’t let developers near your test environment:
Developers have a habit of making application and configuration changes and not mentioning them in the deployment steps. If they can’t get at your test environment on your server they won’t be able to make any changes that will go unrecorded in your release candidate or deployment document.

5) Make a note of all code changes made for testing purposes:
Sometimes you will make changes to base code for applications that are under test – this prevents like transactions from being carried out (e.g. in a banking project!). If you make a note of all such changes you can make sure you’re able to remove them all from the final project files that are released to the client

Watch this space for MORE software testing tips in future!

Our range of Software Testing Training courses will provide you with the knowledge you need to pass the ISEB and ISTQB Software testing exams.

However one thing we try to focus on as much as possible, in addition to passing exams, is providing real-world advice and knowledge that can be applied back in the workplace.

All of our Software Testing trainers are experienced industry professionals, so we’ve asked them to provide some short, practical software testing tips.

If you’re interested in a qualification in Software Testing, check out our Software Testing Training courses. The most popular is the Software Testing Foundation Training course. We also offer Intermediate Software Testing Training and the Advanced Certificates, including the Advanced Software Testing Certificate for Test Managers.

5 Software Testing Tips

Check back next week for 5 more!

1) Be thorough with analysing test results:
It’s easy just to look at results of a test in terms of “pass” or “fail”. However look at a fail in terms of “why did it fail”, and try to identify the root cause to find a solution to the problem. Your career as a software tester will be more successful if you can provide solutions, rather than just identifying problems.

Read the rest of "5 Software Testing Tips"