Computer scientist Tom Kilburn is credited with writing the first piece of software, which debuted on June 21, 1948, at the University of Manchester in England. Software testing arrived alongside the development of software, which had its beginnings just after the second world war. Testing effectiveness is optimized by running the fewest number of tests to find the largest number of defects. A test management plan helps to prioritize which types of testing provide the most value – given available time and resources.

Just as important, exploratory testing helps a tester or testing team uncover hard-to-predict scenarios and situations that can lead to software errors.Įven a simple application can be subject to a large number and variety of tests. In each case, validating base requirements is a critical assessment.

Usability testing: Validating how well a customer can use a system or web application to complete a task.

Considered to be a type of non-functional testing.

Stress testing: Testing how much strain the system can take before it fails.

Sanity testing can be used to verify menus, functions and commands at the surface level, when there is no time for a full regression test.

Regression testing: Checking whether new features break or degrade functionality.

Load testing, for example, is used to evaluate performance under real-life load conditions.

Performance testing: Testing how the software performs under different workloads.

Black-box testing is a common way to verify functions.

Functional testing: Checking functions by emulating business scenarios, based on functional requirements.

A unit is the smallest testable component of an application.

Unit testing: Validating that each software unit performs as expected.

Integration testing: Ensuring that software components or functions operate together.

Acceptance testing: Verifying whether the whole system works as intended.

There are many different types of software tests, each with specific objectives and strategies:

Product testing