Improved Methods Of Software Testing

With the rapid evolution of information technology, the application of computer software products has prevailed in all aspects of our social life and becomes more and more huge in scale. Software Testing, being the key technology for assuring software quality, has become more concerned than ever. This thesis starts with basic concepts and activities of software testing, analyzes the current software testing situation in China nowadays, and introduces an improved testing method - Test Automation, to alleviate the heavy burden through traditional manual testing routines.Test Automation is expected to automatically carry out testing plans prearranged by testing engineers. By using auto testing tools and utilities, Test Automation is aimed to reduce the workload of manual testing so as to increase the software quality. Aiming at different test activities such as test designing, test establishing, test execution and test checking, the thesis has a discussion over whether each of them could be introduced some improvement towards automatization, how to get improved, the improving process and how to utilize suitable tools as well.Two practical examples from my former work, which utilized Test Automation method for the improvement of software testing quality, are given in this thesis: 1. Ipedo XML database system testing by using original tool Ipedo Test Framework; 2. Pressure test of insurance company new contract management system by using free test tool-The Grinder. Through discussion of these two examples, combining with experiences I gained during my work, we have further discussed the detail process of improving Automatic Testing.Due to the research of software testing methods and the practical carrying out of improvements, the corporation the author currently works for has gained a lot of benifits. The automation and pipelining of test process manages to save great amount of time and labor cost. It tremendously helps achieve the high stability of product quality. It is very beneficial to myself as the creativity and challenge within has turned the exhausting repeating manual operations into design and analyse oriented intelligence activities.Test Automation makes it possible for the software testing process to be more engineering oriented and modularized. However, there exists some misunderstanding in practice. Many companies may blindly introduce Test Automation method with too high expectation or too much reliance. Thus, when it comes to decide whether introduce Test Automation or not, companies should be deliberate on two main factors: the suitability of improvement and the ration of output against investment.Great research work has been done to improve the Test Automation techniques. It has shown big advantages within companies and their projects. It is still a new technique in our country with the need to expand its range of applications and the method improvement as well. Thus Test Automation has a great potential in the near future and it will make testing engineer a new focus of the IT industy.