Quality control

Quality control describes the directed use of testing to measure the achievement of a specified standard. Quality control is a formal (as in structured, not as in wearing-a-tuxedo fancy) use of testing. Quality control is a superset of testing, although it often used synonymously with testing. Roughly, you test to see if something is broken, and with quality control you set limits that say, in effect, if this particular stuff is broken then whatever you're testing fails.

Yet another way of looking at the difference between testing and quality control is to consider the difference between a test as an event and a test as a part of a system. For example, let's say our test is the measurement of your ability to assemble a jigsaw puzzle in one hour. We test you today, and you complete the puzzle in fifty-eight minutes, so you pass. This seems pretty trivial, but say that there is some need in your life requiring you to solve puzzles quickly: we tested you once, but we must verify that you can meet this weird requirement continually over time. The solution is to test you at regular intervals, which will allow us to see if you can still be successful when under stress, when you haven't slept, when your workload is high -- our quality control approach to this issue says "you must finish puzzle in one hour or less" and "we will test this requirement periododically over time". And as a side effect of this quality control testing, you might find that you are more likely to improve in your puzzle solving skills because of the repeated practice; this is the beginning of a shift to quality

Suggestions to Improve Testing.

1) List down the modules to be tested.This include functional and non-functional testing

2) List down the functionality that you will not test either because of incompleteness of module, data dependency or hardware limitations etc.

3) Pl. get formal approval from your manager for the activities/schedule that you are planning.This will endorse your deliverables and validity.

4) Make sure that you have the defect tracking system in place with severity norms and owners defined.The defect logging format should be approved by your manager.

5) Make sure that you have set of data that will help you in testing various test scenarios.If data is not available, pl. check how you can generate the same.

6) Make sure that you take daily back-up of your test logs and discuss progress and issues with your management team every day.

7) Keep talking with developers. That will help you to increase product understanding.

8) Release notes from Developer team to Testing team will be entry criteria to start testing activity. The release notes will include information like the defects fixed in the build, any work around ,features not addressed.

9) Multiple iterations of testing will bring up new defects. Periodically update the test cases checking the possibility of new scenerios.Once the defect probability starts reducing in further testing iterations, this may be the indication of product getting stable. Introducing multiple testing heads will also help to filter new defects.

10)Try to set the processes with help of your manager. Eventually that will be helpful in long run.

Cross Browser Testing

It is critical to test across many browser and operating system combinations because the page can look different in each scenario. Another concern is the screen resolution and color depth. A page might look good at a resolution of 600 x 800, but parts of it might get cut off at 640 x 480. Different color depths should be used on the test machines also. Colors might vary unpredictably if a browser-safe palette is not used. As a QA, we should look for:

Color of links
Broken images
Low color contrast
Spacing in tables
Text wrapping issues
Margins
Alignment, formatting, and size of text

Alignment of controls such as radio buttons and check boxes
Switch Javascript off
Switch cookies off
Switch plug-ins off
Switch images off
Printing - Do not forget to test printing of your Web pages by printing on a variety of popular printers. Printing can be unpredictable, particularly with frames. Keep an eye on what is printed, the readability of content, and the speed of the print job.

Be sure to use clean machines when you start testing and make sure no plug-ins are installed. If the plug-ins are already installed,you might miss a defect that has a dependency on the plug-in. There should always be some test cases that involve using a browser as it is first installed,with no extra components.

Netscape Navigator requires a plug-in.Netscape users must be aware that the plug-in is required and should be given instructions on how to install it. (Anyway Netscape is a dying browser)

View in text browser (Incidentally the Opera browser has a built-in text-browser emulator)

Missed a Bug

Most of the testers/QAs are concern about external issues that they have missed. Carrier wise external issues are not good for testers profile inside their organization. More external issues may destroy the testers reputation within organization. On the other hand it is not fair to put 100% responsibility of external issues to testers. Why testers miss bugs?.

1.Lack of project management.
2.Not enough time to test.
3.Requirement change in last moment before releases.
4.Lack of domain knowledge.
5.Lack of QA/test resources.
6.Poor requirement specifications.
7.Limited time to acquire domain knowledge.
8.Selecting automation testing in the earlier stage of project. ( Where manually testing is required.)
9.High coupling with developers. ( testers who depends of developers to get domain/technical knowledge may influence by developers.
10.Not enough motivation towards testing. ( more open bugs, ignorance of QA team within organization, lost of existing functionalities due to new bugs, less salary.... )
11.Developers/QA/tester attitude towards bugs.

There are more to add for above reasons list, Above points can be categorized in to two.

1.Self factors
2.Organization factors.

Anyway most of the above factors caused due to lots of sub reasons. Head of the organization or middle layer management should take actions to treat the organization factors. Immediate supervisor should care about the testes self factors.

Test Director:

TestDirector is a single, Web-based application for all essential aspects of test management — Requirements Management, Test Plan, Test Lab, and Defects Management. You can leverage these core modules either as a standalone solution or integrated within a global Quality Centre of Excellence environment. TestDirector supports high levels of communication and collaboration among IT teams. Whether you are coordinating the work of many disparate QA teams, or working with a large, distributed Centre of Excellence, this test management tool helps facilitate information access across geographical and organization boundaries.

Qulity center is the latest vesion of the testdirector. upto 8.0 it is called as testdirector after that it is called as QC. TestDirector for Quality Center has same 4 tabs - that did not change. Quality Center perfectly integrates with Functional Testing that now includes QTP + WinRunner (this

integration was possible before with TestDirector as well). As far as tabs... There is 1 additional tab that appeared in Quality Center that was not there before and it's called Dashboard (for project management).

Test Director:

TestDirector is a single, Web-based application for all essential aspects of test management — Requirements Management, Test Plan, Test Lab, and Defects Management. You can leverage these core modules either as a standalone solution or integrated within a global Quality Centre of Excellence environment. TestDirector supports high levels of communication and collaboration among IT teams. Whether you are coordinating the work of many disparate QA teams, or working with a large, distributed Centre of Excellence, this test management tool helps facilitate information access across geographical and organization boundaries.

Qulity center is the latest vesion of the testdirector.upto 8.0 it is called as testdirector after that it is called as QC. TestDirector for Quality Center has same 4 tabs - that did not change. Quality Center perfectly integrates with Functional Testing that now includes QTP + WinRunner

As far as tabs... There is 1 additional tab that appeared in Quality Center that was not there before and it's called Dashboard (for project management).

WinRunner:

It is Mercury Interactive Functional Automation Testing Tool.

How many types of Run Modes are available in WinRunner?

WinRunner provide three types of Run Modes.

• Verify Mode

• Debug Mode

• Update Mode

What’s the Verify Mode?

In Verify Mode, WinRunner compare the current result of application to it’s expected result.

What’s the Debug Mode?

In Debug Mode, WinRunner track the defects in a test script.

What’s the Update Mode?

In Update Mode, WinRunner update the expected results of test script.

How many types of recording modes available in WinRunner?

WinRunner provides two types of Recording Mode?

• Context Sensitive

• Analog

What’s the Context Sensitive recording?

WinRunner captures and records the GUI objects, windows, keyboard inputs, and mouse click activities through Context Sensitive Recording.

What’s the Analog recording?

It captures and records the keyboard inputs, mouse click and mouse movement. It’s not captures the GUI objects and Windows.