Originally posted at SQABlogs.com on { 03:59, 2008-Nov-9 } { Posted in Software Testing}

Another discussion among the team members provoked some more thoughts about Web2.0. Rohit made a list of items of web 2.0 that may require additional testing. The list is below.

My point is we may have to work altogether in a different way to make our testing effective in an environment which is very dynamic and keeps on changing. For example, we all visit various news sites and content has to change every few minutes or hours. Now, it demands a very efficient & effective testing. In fact, Interactive Web has brought forth a dynamic web experience to the end users. 

Web end-users are impatient and they demand and have access to a web world full of options. Even the smallest failure in providing a superlative functionality, performance, security, consistency, speed and reliability to the end user may lead to undesirable revenue losses, loss of reputation and increased support costs. With the aim of offering the user a consummate web experience, extensive new testing strategies and processes need to be exercised that would accommodate the requirements of Interactive Web.

So what is so different in Interactive Web?

Some of the key aspects of Interactive Web that require additional testing attention are –
  • The ever changing nature of Interactive Web applications makes extensive unit testing nearly impossible.
  • Testing should suffice for every rapid change, seasonal update and user input data.
  • Tight coupling between design and code, increased complexity of code integration from various sources, varying serialization or encoding schemes need to be considered in testing.
  • Developers get a lot of liberty of playing around with the code, and they take their liberty in how they communicate between the client and the server, and this is an important coverage factor in testing.
  • Aspects of Third Party dependencies like CSS Stylesheets, Javascript Libraries, CMS, CDNs, Adservers, Media Servers, Web Analytics, News Feeds etc also demand extensive coverage while testing.
  • Emerging new technologies like Aggregators, Wikis, Folksonomy, Videocasting, Podcasting, SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), OpenAPIs, Microformats, Syndication, UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) etc need to be covered for efficient testing.
  • Intra-object, inter-object and inter-client dependencies and various data interactions need to be tested in order to test the dynamic behaviour of the web content.
  • High Web-UI implementations and Java Script dependencies needs to be tested.
  • Different browsers render AJAX differently or may not support AJAX altogether.
  • Testing needs to cover varying ISPs, connection speeds and end-user platforms.
  • Bandwidth requirements for Interactive Web applications are high.
  • Load on the servers varies for peak hours and different geographies.
  • Because of high and easy accessibility, high security risks are involved.
Considering this list, new testing strategies and approaches need to be considered and implemented in order to provide an extensive testing coverage and superior defect prevention in testing these applications optimally.