Iryna Chernenko

The Role of People in Software Testing

Several kinds of software testing could require  minimal basic knowledge of the software products.

Several kinds of software testing could require  minimal basic knowledge of the software products.

Users in the Role of Software Testers

And the simplest method to perform software testing is to run it and monitor its conduct. A lot of evident defects may be easily detected  by people with nearly no special knowledge of computer software products and  little technical skills.

For example usability testing may be conducted with  little basic knowledge. Thus, to perform testing of some user-friendly,  “plug-and-play” software products, beginner users are usually asked to use the software  products. Their behavior and complexities in using are observed and related data  is recorded for usability estimation and betterment.

In this case, the testing involves the actual beginner  users as software testers, but it may also involve skilled testers who observe  and record the testing data. If we are talking about automated data recording,  the part of the skilled software tester in this case can be eliminated.

Professional Testers

Well, a lot of people have the erroneous comprehension  that software testing is very “easy”, and anyone can conduct it. Such misunderstanding  also leads to different troubles in software management, where not very  experienced people are assigned to testing teams.

Anyway this trouble can be fixed by a well  knowledge, technical skills and experience in software testing.

For the big and difficult software systems used in  society nowadays, any expectation for ensured quality needs to be supported by  testing beyond informal ad hoc testing.

That is why it is necessary to create the software  systems, their operational environment, their users and usage scenarios, progression  and templates; so that regular testing can be conducted to assure that these systems  meet their clients’ quality anticipations.

Test cases can be derived from these models and used  methodically to identify and correct software bugs and to assure software  quality. All these activities are carried out by individual software testers or  testing groups.

Developers in the Role of Testers

Nevertheless different other development personnel need  to be involved in testing process as well. For instance, software bugs identified  at the time of testing need to be fixed by the people who are answerable for  the making of the product design or code. Consequently, developers whose code  is under test also need to be involved in testing process.

It happens so that people may play the double role  of developers and testers in the project, when they perform testing of their own  code, such as in the unit or component testing sub-stages.

Nevertheless, professional software testers are characteristically employed to testing the integration of various elements  and the general operation of the system in the integration, system, and acceptance testing sub-stages.

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