A Complete Web Application Testing Checklist

Most consumer decisions are based on the information accessed by the user on the web. From the smallest purchase decisions like ordering a meal to the biggest like investments, most of the purchase decisions are made by consumers based on the information regarding the product or services. It means every business has to maintain a website to gain the traction of the audience and provide them with adequate information to make a purchase decision.

But having a website doesn’t suffice. It must be informative, user-friendly, and accessible. The website should be tested thoroughly from every perspective to maintain these elements. This is called the web app testing process.

What is Web Application Testing? Why is it so important?

Web application testing is a standard software testing practice to test websites and applications to identify potential bugs before it is accessible to web users. The issues like security, compatibility with multiple devices, performance, functionality, and ability to handle traffic and real-time users are tested.

Some of the factors that make Web App Testing significant during SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) are:

• It nullifies or minimizes the bugs and errors on the website
• It increases website usability, hence its credibility
• It ensures visitors back frequently
• It improves ranking on the search engine rankings
• It draws more inbound links, thus increasing brand awareness and driving sales
• It ensures compatibility with different platforms & browsers

What to consider during web application testing: Checklist

When running web application tests, start with figuring out what the unique needs of the end-users might be. For example, the site should be optimized for:

• Interactive User Interface (UI): To ensure a better user experience and engagement, UI testing is a must.
  Read More: UI Testing Tools and Techniques
• Functionality: The website should be functionally streamlined and every element should function as expected.
• User-friendliness: A user-friendly website improves customer retention through better usability.
• Bug-Free: The website should function bug-free for more accurate functioning of different features, making it more reliable for the customers to use.
  Read More: 6 Common Types of Software Bugs Every Tester Should Know
• Security: Amidst the increasing cyber-crimes and data breaches on the internet, keeping the user data secured is essential to build trust and credibility.
• Performance: Since the human attention span is lesser than a Goldfish, a web application should render fast enough to engage the user. Hence, it is essential to improve the performance of a website
• Cross browser compatibility: Users have different devices and browsers at their disposal, and to access the web content on the go, switching between multiple devices and browsers is common. Hence, a web application that works seamlessly across different browsers, devices, and OS serves the purpose of accessing web applications anywhere anytime.

Test Cross Browser Compatibility

Web Application Testing Checklist

To perform comprehensive web application testing, it is necessary to do different types of tests that fulfill the requirements mentioned in the web app testing checklist above. These different types of tests are described below.

1. Functional Testing

Functional Testing aims at testing the overall functional capabilities of the web app. In Functional Testing, all the features and operational behavior of a web app are tested to ensure the compatibility of features and specifications. It doesn’t have anything to test the internal mechanism and output specific to any input.

The functional testing intends to verify if your product has all the functional specifications as desired or mentioned in the development documentation. It ensures that the functionalities and requirements work from the end user’s perspective. It tests every minute possibility & input by a user that developers didn’t expect. The testing method should be completed with automated test cases to provide an effective positive user experience.

You can perform Functionality tests by following the below steps:

• Check the list of all the functional requirements
• Get a clear understanding of all the requirements through it
• Based on all the requirements, identify test input
• Based on the chosen test input values, compute the outcomes
• Execute all the test case

2. Usability Testing

Usability testing checks the user-friendliness of the elements in the web app. It tests the flow of the web app and how the user can navigate through it seamlessly. Usability testing relies on standard practices that ensure the ease of use and effectiveness of a web app. It roots out all the errors, like typos, punctuation, and weak flow. Together, these elements can make a poor impression of a website and reduce its capacity. Usability tests the application in the form that is accessed by the end-users. Hence, studying the user personas and their requirements is essential for usability tests.

You can perform Usability tests by following the below steps:

• Create a prototype or product ready to test
• Find the right users of testing
• Conduct a usability test
• Document all the tests
• Make a detailed analysis and repeat the process

3. Interface Testing

Interface Testing checks how the website communicates at different interfaces such as Application, Web Server, and the Database. It is different from Integration testing, where the different internal components of the application are put together and tested. In Interface testing, how the application communicates with the web server or the database is checked. During Interface testing, various interfaces are tested as follows:

• Application: Test requests are sent correctly to the Database, and the client-side output is displayed correctly. In this scenario, any error will be caught by the application. The error will not go to the end-user but to the administrator.
• Web Server: The web server is responsible for handling all application requests
• Database Server: It ensures that all the sent queries give desired outcomes to the Database.

Any web application has two major interfaces where the tests need to be performed:

• Between a web server and an application server
• Between the application server and the database server

Interface testing performed between any of the above interface is used to:

• Check whether servers are working perfectly in different scenarios
• Check if all faults are managed properly or any error pops out
• Examine all the results and check the link to a web server

4. Database Testing

Database testing is important to check how the web application stores data and performs various functions that include:

• Executing queries during testing if any error comes up
• Keep a regular check on the response time of queries
• Retrieved test data must be reflected accurately in the web application
• Any change when creating, updating, or deleting data in the database must not have data integrity

You can perform Database tests by following the below steps:

• Set up the test environment to test the software application.
• Execute the test by run a test cases under the test environment.
• Check the results and validate the output with the expected results.

5. Performance Testing

In Performance Testing, the test process relates to a system’s speed, stability, and scalability under different scenarios. It checks whether the system can deliver the same efficiency with various outputs from different users. Performance Testing ensures:

• The architecture can work with heavier load conditions.
• Fast response time with every new version of the software.
• Application can handle the maximum load and deliver optimal performance.

You can perform Performance tests by following the below steps:

• Identify the Test Environment and Tools
• Define Acceptable Performance Criteria
• Plan and Design Tests
• Prepare Test Environment and Tools
• Run the Performance Tests
• Resolve and Retest

Try Speed Test for Free

6. Compatibility Testing

The same website renders differently in different browsers and their versions, which is why it is essential to perform cross browser compatibility tests. Cross Browser Testing allows you to test if your web application functions seamlessly and consistently across multiple browsers on different desktop and mobile devices. Every web element like buttons, images, text fields, lists, and more changes with the change in OS, which is why it is important to test cross-platform compatibility by testing on real devices as opposed to emulators or simulators.

BrowserStack’s real device cloud offers access to 3000+ real devices and browsers, and lets you test under real user conditions for better accuracy.

Test on Real Device Cloud

7. Security Testing

The process involves testing, analyzing, and reporting every security aspect of your app. Security administrators do it to test the security level of the app through both manual and automated security testing methods. Security testing performs different functions such as:

• It roots out unauthorized access to secure pages and puts an end to downloading authorized pages without approval.
• It kills automatic sessions after prolonged user inactivity
• It redirects website to encrypted SSL pages

You can perform Performance tests by following the below steps:

• Make a threat List and prepare test plan
• Create a traceability Matrix for every error and Vulnerability
• Choose the testing tools as per the requirement
• Prepare a test case document
• Execute Security Test Cases

Conclusion

To test web application comprehensively it is essential to follow the above checklist and perform different types of tests to ensure the web application is bug-free in every aspect. However, to identify the bottlenecks, it is important to test the applications under real user conditions, which is only possible by testing the web apps on a real device cloud.

By choosing a secured real device cloud like BrowserStack, QAs can efficiently test their web apps on 3000+ real browsers and devices. This makes testing Agile for them with wider coverage. The cloud allows parallel testing and supports integrations with popular CI/CD tools such as Jira, Jenkins, CircleCI, TeamCity, and Travis CI, to ensure streamlined Automation Testing of your web app.