Challenges in Software Testing of Web Applications
Software Testing is the continuous process done to keep a check on the software product quality by comparing the expected and the actual result for the first time and every time. There are a lot of web applications present in internet which can be simply considered as incomplete applications and websites. Testing is one among the crucial phases in the development process of Web-based applications to measure its qualitative and quantitative aspects. For making a web application bug free, the tester has to face a lot of testing hurdles. The quality assurance of Web applications is always a tough task because there are so many factors which can affect the quality of these applications.
The main critical challenges in the Web based applications are listed based on their criticality rank are:
1. Integration: The challenging factors associated with this are inconsistency in the environment, infrastructure, interaction model used, performance and reliability issues etc. The Numerous Application Usage Paths, Intranet versus Internet based Applications used by end users will lead to the inconsistency issues.
2. Interoperability: Diverse information paths, smooth data retrieval and operating system compatibility are the most critical challenging factors associated with interoperability testing. The end users may use different types of browsers to access the application. Even on similar browsers, application may be rendered differently based on the Screen resolution/Hardware/Software Configuration. These are some main interoperability issues.
3. Security: Security testing checks how well the system saves itself from security attacks and how the confidentiality of the data is maintained with the site. The main challenges are with the cross site scripting, executing the malicious file, insecure communications, injection flaws, use of different authentication procedures for a single application with myriad of services etc.
4. Performance: Performance testing checks how fast a given input can be converted into an output. The main challenges faced in performance testing of web applications are on situations when large applications have to be tested with minimal hardware support, capability of the system to handle bulk data under various test bottleneck criterions.
5. Usability: Web-based applications present usability challenges that we don’t often see in other types of designs. These challenges include scalability, interactivity, comprehension, issues that arise when frequent changes are made to the application etc.
Also, there are challenges with the Conformance, Reliability, Scalability and the System testing of web applications. Issues relay on the network speeds and the Firewalls also. These challenging issues of testing require a lot of efforts to be resolved. We need generic methodologies, architectures, infrastructures and testing approaches to cover all the possible issues and problems that may occur during integration and interoperability testing. Provide proper identification and authentication, data protection, error handling and also avoid vulnerabilities in your code to make your application more secure from breaches. Also provide end to end testing such as unit level, service level, interface validation and test the boundary load conditions for testing the performance bottlenecks. Providing comprehensive interactive visual designs will also provide the users with a more visual extravaganza and reduces the usability challenges. In this way the process of testing can be made very simple and easy to conduct.
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