Web App Testing: The Ultimate Checklist

A web application is one of the most prominent ways businesses showcase and promote their brand in the digital realm. Therefore, you must ensure that your web app fulfils all your business criteria and ensures a seamless user journey. On top of that, you need to ensure that your web app is user-friendly, informative, accessible, and generates proper traction. This is where the web app testing process comes in.

Web application testing is the fifth phase of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). The testing phase is standard practice for all web application development companies. It is crucial for you as well as for your clients. Web application testing helps in checking all the business requirements. It confirms is the app is ready for launch or not.

• The web app is free of bugs, glitches, or other related issues.
• The web app can handle incoming web traffic.
• It is user-friendly as well as intuitive.
• If optimized.
• If it is compatible with other platforms and channels.

A Detailed Checklist For Web App Testing

Web application testing takes different elements into account. It is divided based on certain parameters. The whole testing process is based on various disciplines like usability, functionality, interface, database, security, compatibility, and overall performance.

All these different testing bridges the gap between your business web application and user interaction. Let’s get into details about how each test will help your web application and what is it all about.

Usability Testing

The usability test determines the user-friendlyness of the app. It examines whether the user can navigate through the web app effectively and seamlessly, whether the instruction is clear, and so on.

Purpose

• The usability testing determines user- efficiency and whether the web app provides optimal functionality.
• It also checks user navigation and examines whether the users are getting the desired search results.
• The usability testing helps you know whether you have met all your client’s requirements.
• It also helps in making the user journey on your web app seamless with zero hindrance.
• This also helps in checking, whether there is adequate information available to the users or if they are facing any obstacle/difficulty while navigating. For example, whether there is the availability of proper 404 error pages, sitemaps, etc.
• The usability testing discovers issues if any skipped during the SDLC development phase.

Precisely, we can say that usability testing helps in examining the user-friendliness of the web app’s interface and the end-user interaction.

Testing Process

• You can easily start by creating a prototype on which you will conduct the test.
• Find the right kind of users, or you can create a focus group for your usability testing.
• Conduct the usability test and document every detail to the last bit.
• Then you can create a report based on your testing and analyze which areas you can improve.

Functionality Testing

The next we move on to is functionality testing. This type of testing helps in examining or validating all the functional requirements of the web application. The SRS (Software Requirement Specification) states the functional parameters to be fulfilled by the web app.

The functional test depending on major functionalities, usability, accessibility, and error handling, is conducted manually or automatically. White box and Block box testing are some of the necessary functional tests, that are not concerned with the application source code.

Purpose

• The functionality test ensures that the web app follows all the client’s guidelines.
• This test ensures that the User Interface (UI), database, security, and client/server communication are operating accordingly.
• Through this test, testers can verify the output against each relevant user input.

Precisely, the functionality testing helps to check whether all the major functions of the web app are working as it claims to do.

Testing Process

• You can start by making a list of all the functional requirements of your web app and get a clear understanding of what you expect.
• Based on that, you can identify all the relevant test inputs.
• Then based on that test inputs, you can compute all the possible outputs.
• Finally, you can execute all the cases and verify them against your requirements.

Compatibility Testing

The compatibility testing checks whether the web application is functioning properly across all platforms. This is a non-functional form of testing that inspects your web app’s compatibility on web browsers, operating systems (OS) like Android and iOS, mobile devices, hardware, networking platforms, and so on. Through this testing, you will be able to know if your web app is compatible and accessible on sophisticated as well as basic types of platforms.

Purpose

• Initially the compatibility test is done on familiar platforms./li>
• This test is conducted before the app’s deployment into the production environment or on other platforms.
• This test ensures that your web app is consistent on every kind of platform there is promoting more user engagement.

Testing Process

• Conduct cross-browser compatibility checks by testing them on emulators or simulators before testing them on real devices.
• You can also run operating system compatibility tests using the latest sophisticated APIs.
• Check that your web app caters to various handheld devices like mobile devices, tablets, etc.
• Look for bandwidth strength and compatibility using different network systems like Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G network speeds.
• Run a small compatibility test when other devices like printers, SD cards, USB, Bluetooth, etc are connected.

Database Testing

Database testing inspects the consistency and integrity of the database, schemas, functions, tables, procedures, and other related areas. Sophisticated queries conduct this type of testing task. This enhances the adaptability of the web app in different circumstances.

Purpose

• Database testing ensures that there is no unnecessary data or junk data like null values or any kind of text with special characters.
• The testing conducted through queries ensures that the web app has a fully functional database that responds to the user immediately from anywhere.
• This enhances the web app performance and helps check whether the UI is as per the target audience’s expectations.
• Confirms is the web app database is securely stored or not.

Testing Process

• Firstly, you can first set your test environment according to your requirements to test the software application.
• Then you can run and execute all the test cases that you have planned before under the test environment.
• Finally, analyze and validate your result outputs as per your expected test result cases.
• If you find any disparity, you can ask the developers to make the necessary changes and run them again in the same procedure.

Interface Testing

Interface testing inspects how your web application is communicating with different interfaces like the web servers, application, and database.

Purpose

• Interface testing between the above cases checks whether the servers are working up to par in the different working environments.
• It checks whether the errors or faults (if any) are effectively managed.
• It also examines whether there is a proper link to the web server at all times.

Testing Process

• Firstly the interface testing is conducted between the web server and the application server.
• Secondly, interface testing is conducted between the application server and the database server.

Security Testing

Security testing is one crucial part of the testing process that analyzes, tests, and reports all the aspects of your web application’s security. The security administrators conduct this test either automatically or manually. Security testing checks the different levels of security in the web app using the proper tools and professional help.

Purpose

• Security testing kills all the automatic sessions that are logged in the system when users are inactive for a prolonged time.
• This test helps in rooting out any kind of security threat in the web app including unauthorized access to secured web pages, unethical downloading of the authorized pages without any proper approval, and so on.
• This testing redirects websites to encrypted SSL pages.

Testing Process

•  Firstly, you can start by making a threat list and then prepare a test plan.
• Secondly, create a traceability matrix for every possible error or web app vulnerability.
• Once done you can take help from the various testing tools or help from web application companies as per your requirement.
• Prepare a test case document and record every detail.
• Then execute the security test cases and analyze the scenarios.
• If you find any kind of security issues, bugs, and glitches, then you may resolve them and redo the whole process again.

Performance Testing

Performance testing is a software testing method that checks the performance blockage or issue of a web app. This testing evaluates the web application’s overall performance which includes speed, reaction time, stability, dependability, scalability, and utilization of resources under a specific workload.

Purpose

• Performance testing helps to check the navigation, stability, scalability, speed, and robustness of the web app.
• It saves a lot of time, resources, and energy for the web app development service providers if they apply it sooner.
• It helps you to know as testers how your client’s web app reacts when there is huge traffic.
• Conduct this test right before the deployment/ launch of the web app to best position your products/services to your end-users.
• With performance testing, you can know if the web app has met all the business criteria of your clients.

Testing Process

• You can first start by identifying the test environment and the tools you require.
• Define all the acceptable performance criteria to be fulfilled.
• After that, plan and design the different tests matching those requirements.
• Prepare the right test environments and tools according to the pan before.
• Finally, run all the performance tests you need
• If you find any issues, resolve them immediately and retest them all following the same process.

Pro Tip
Various web testing tools can be of use while conducting a check for your business web application. Some common web app testing tools are Selenium, TestComplete, Appium, Accunetix, LambdaTest, and so on. All these professional tools will contribute to making your testing process easy and time-saving.

Conclusion

Web application testing is comparatively a huge and time-consuming process. Your task can be done by professional testers. The above-mentioned points are a comprehensive checklist that you can follow to perform all the tests one step at a time. If your web application runs effectively and seamlessly during each testing process, then you can get ready to launch it.

The testing phase in the SDLC is a very crucial and integral part before you are ready to deploy the web app. Run the tests in real environments so you can have an accurate result and precise report of the web app.