Website testing, or how not to fail at launch

Why website testing is so important

We can all agree that in today's fast-changing, competitive world the internet has become an integral part of our lives. These days most of us make decisions by looking things up online, so having a website is not just a mandatory but a necessary option for every kind of business. It is the first step towards appearing - and staying relevant - on the market.
Simply having a website is not enough. An organization needs an informative, accessible and convenient website. To keep all these qualities, the website must be tested, and this process is called web testing or website testing.

Web testing is a thorough check of a site for potential errors. It is complete testing of web applications before launch. A web system must be fully verified from start to finish before it is released to end users.
Testing also determines how convenient and attractive the site is for the user, how quickly the needed information can be found and accessed, and how reliable and safe the site is to use. And, most importantly, whether it helps achieve the business goals stated at the start of the project. The overall purpose of web testing is to find issues - also known as bugs, problems or defects - that can affect a website or application. Web testing can also be used to spot areas or aspects of the website that can be improved to get better results, whether that means more enquiries, more sales, more returning visitors, happier users or something else.

How to test a website?

Before testing begins, it is very important to define a testing strategy. What for? First of all - to organize the testing process within the current conditions, or to determine the need to bring in additional resources. Secondly, it is equally important that all participants of the testing process understand what is happening, share the same expectations and identify problems that may arise during testing.

Testing strategies also describe how risks are mitigated at the testing level, which types of testing should be performed, and which entry and exit criteria apply. They are created on the basis of project documentation. Project documents describe the software functionality to be included in the next release. For each stage of project development, a corresponding strategy should be created for testing the new feature sets.
A well-thought-out testing strategy becomes the basis for more detailed documentation, in particular the test plan. The strategy is built primarily by the project manager and the development quality specialist - QA (quality assurance) or QC (quality control) specialists.
As for the basic rules of website testing, they come down to passing several mandatory testing stages that ensure the application is fully operational, stable and secure. It is an important part of web development that ensures the application works correctly before its release.
At certain stages of website testing, specific types of testing are used that make it possible to fully achieve the testing goals. The goals can differ: checking key elements - usability, security, reliability, the system as a whole - as well as re-checking those elements after changes, for example re-testing.

Types of website testing

Specialists currently distinguish the following main types of website testing:

• Functionality testing
• Usability testing
• UI testing
• Performance testing
• Security testing

Functionality testing

Functional testing is defined as a type of testing that verifies that every software function works according to the requirements specification. It is a kind of "black box" testing - it does not require internal knowledge of the software's structure. It checks various aspects described in the requirements and feature specification documents.

Functional testing includes:

• checking that all links work: that they are correct and not broken;
• checking forms. For example, when required fields are left empty, the form shows an error message; fields are pre-filled by default, and so on;
• checking the HTML and CSS code to make the site easier for search engines to crawl;
• workflow testing - whether each workflow accurately reflects the business processes.

Testing negative scenarios is also mandatory: when a user enters incorrect data, an error message or a help message must be displayed.

Usability testing

This type of testing checks the characteristics of human-computer interaction to identify flaws for correction. The main characteristics are:
• Ease of learning.
• Navigation.
• Subjective user satisfaction.
• Overall look.
In other words, the site should be easy to use and consistent enough; instructions must be very clear; the main menu should be present on every page; the content should be logical and easy to understand.

UI testing

It is defined as the process of testing the graphical user interface of the application under test. UI testing includes checking screens with controls such as menus, buttons, icons and all types of bars - the toolbar, menu bar, dialog boxes, windows and so on. It helps answer questions like:
• How does the interface look?
• Are the buttons comfortable to click?
• Are the icons clear, is the text, format and font easy to read?
• Which accents are placed where, and what do they draw attention to?
This type of testing also covers compatibility checks with different web browsers and their versions, and how the site looks at different screen resolutions and on different devices (smartphones, tablets).

Performance testing

A web application must withstand heavy loads, so performance testing usually includes load testing, stress testing and testing the site's performance at different internet connection speeds.
Load testing checks how many users can access or query a single page. Can the system withstand peak loads? How well does the site handle many simultaneous user requests, large user inputs, simultaneous database connections, heavy load on specific pages and so on.
Stress testing goes beyond the normal operating point and evaluates how the system behaves under such extreme conditions. It is carried out to make sure the system does not crash in critical situations.
Testing the site's performance at different connection speeds checks how quickly the site responds over different connections.

Security testing

Security testing is defined as a type of software testing that protects software systems and applications from any vulnerabilities, threats and risks that can lead to major losses. Security testing of any system is about finding all possible loopholes and weaknesses that could lead to the loss of information, revenue or reputation at the hands of employees or outsiders.
The goal of security testing is to identify threats in the system and measure its potential vulnerabilities, so that the system does not stop functioning or being used. It also helps detect all possible security threats and helps developers fix these problems in code.
While working through all the stages of website testing, a document must be created that records all the found errors; it is then handed over to the developers to fix, after which re-testing is performed.

Conclusion

When creating a website, it is important not just to make sure the design is beautiful, but that the site is built as a whole. There must be complete confidence that the site works flawlessly before it is released to the public. That is exactly why a series of tests is run on the website, specifically designed to exercise all of its functionality and to find any problem, big or small, that could cause users any inconvenience.