Testing Your Web Application - A Quick 10-Step Guide

Written by Krishen Kota


Interested in a quick checklist for testing a web application? The following 10 steps coverrepparttar most critical items that I have found important in making sure a web application is ready to be deployed. Depending on size, complexity, and corporate policies, modifyrepparttar 118044 following steps to meet your specific testing needs.

Step 1 - Objectives

Make sure to establish your testing objectives up front and make sure they are measurable. It will make your life a lot easier by having written objectives that your whole team can understand and rally around. In addition to documenting your objectives, make sure your objectives are prioritized. Ask yourself questions like “What is most important: minimal defects or time-to-market?”

Here are two examples of how to determine priorities:

If you are building a medical web application that will assist in diagnosing illnesses, and someone could potentially die based on how correctlyrepparttar 118045 application functions, you may want to make testingrepparttar 118046 correctness ofrepparttar 118047 business functionality a higher priority than testing for navigational consistency throughoutrepparttar 118048 application.

If you are testing an application that will be used to solicit external funding, you may want to put testingrepparttar 118049 aspects ofrepparttar 118050 application that impactrepparttar 118051 visual appeal asrepparttar 118052 highest testing priority.

Your web application doesn't have to be perfect; it just needs to meet your intended customer's requirements and expectations.

Step 2 – Process and Reporting

Make sure that everyone on your testing team knows his or her role. Who should report what to whom and when? In other words, define your testing process. Userepparttar 118053 following questions to help you get started:

·How will issues be reported? ·Who can assign issues? ·How will issues be categorized? ·Who needs what report and when do they need it? ·Are team meetings scheduled in advance or scheduled as needed?

You may define your testing process and reporting requirements formally or informally, depending on your particular needs. The main point to keep in mind is to organize your team in a way that supports your testing objectives and takes into accountrepparttar 118054 individual personalities on your team. One size never fits all when dealing with people.

Step 3 - Tracking Results

Once you start executing your test plans, you will probably generate a large number of bugs, issues, defects, etc. You will want a way to easily store, organize, and distribute this information torepparttar 118055 appropriate technical team members. You will also need a way to keep management informed onrepparttar 118056 status of your testing efforts. If your company already has a system in place to track this type of information, don't try to reinventrepparttar 118057 wheel. Take advantage of what's already in place.

If your company doesn't already have something in place, spend a little time investigating some ofrepparttar 118058 easy-to-setup online systems such asrepparttar 118059 one found at http://www.adminitrack.com. By using an online system, you can make it much easier on yourself by eliminatingrepparttar 118060 need to install and maintain an off-the-shelf package.

Step 4 - Test Environment

Set up a test environment that is separate from your development and production environment. This includes a separate web server, database server, and application server if applicable. You may or may not be able to utilize existing computers to setup a separate test environment.

Create an explicitly defined procedure for moving code to and from your test environment and make surerepparttar 118061 procedure is followed. Also, work with your development team to make sure each new version of source code to be tested is uniquely identified.

Step 5 – Unit Testing

Unit testing is focused on verifying small portions of functionality. For example, an individual unit test case might focus on verifying thatrepparttar 118062 correct data has been saved torepparttar 118063 database whenrepparttar 118064 Submit button on a particular page is clicked.

An important subset of unit testing that is often overlooked is range checking. That is, making sure allrepparttar 118065 fields that collect information fromrepparttar 118066 user, can gracefully handle any value that is entered. Most people think of range checking as making sure that a numeric field only accepts numbers. In addition to traditional range checking make sure you also check for less common, but just as problematic exceptions. For example, what happens when a user enters his or her last name andrepparttar 118067 last name contains an apostrophe, such as O’Brien? Different combinations of databases and database drivers handlerepparttar 118068 apostrophe differently, sometimes with unexpected results. Proper unit testing will help rid your web application of obvious errors that your users should never have to encounter.

Step 6 - Verifyingrepparttar 118069 HTML

Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) isrepparttar 118070 computer language sent from your web server torepparttar 118071 web browser on your users' computer to displayrepparttar 118072 pages that make up your web application. The World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) managesrepparttar 118073 HTML specification. One major objective of HTML is to providerepparttar 118074 ability for anyone from anywhere to access information onrepparttar 118075 World Wide Web. This concept generally holds true if you conform strictly torepparttar 118076 relevant version ofrepparttar 118077 HTML specification that you will support. Unfortunately, inrepparttar 118078 real world, it is possible for a developer to inadvertently use a proprietary HTML tag that may not work for all of your intended users.

Verifying HTML is simple in concept but can be very time consuming in practice. A good place to start is withrepparttar 118079 World Wide Web Consortium's free HTML Validation Service (http://validator.w3.org). There are also other online and downloadable applications to help in this area such as Website Garage (http://websitegarage.netscape.com). There are two main aspects of verifyingrepparttar 118080 validity of your HTML. First, you want to make sure that your syntax is correct, such as verifying that all opening and closing tags match, etc. Secondly, you want to verify how your pages look in different browsers, at different screen resolutions, and on different operating systems. Create a profile of your target audience and make some decisions on what browsers you will support, on which operating systems, and at what screen resolutions.

In general,repparttar 118081 later versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer are very forgiving. If your development team has only been using Internet Explorer 5.5 on high-resolution monitors, you may be unpleasantly surprised when you see your web application on a typical user's computer. The sooner you start verifying your HTML,repparttar 118082 better off your web application will be.

How to create lists in HTML and control the way they look

Written by Milana Leshinsky


You make lists every day - shopping lists, "things to do" lists, people to call lists. Indeed, lists are a very important part of our lives. That's why when HTML was developed, its programmers just couldn't help it - they created a way to add a list to a web page.

There are three kinds of lists that you can create:

- Unordered - Ordered - Definitions

Oops, another list right there! :-)

1) Here isrepparttar HTML code for creating Unordered list:

  • Sour cream
  • Spagetti
  • Pancakes

The above code will simply create a list of bulleted items (bullets are small dots next to each item - sort of a check mark).

2) When it is important for you to list items in a particular order, create a numbered - or Ordered - list:

  1. Mixrepparttar 118043 batter
  2. Put it inrepparttar 118044 oven
  3. Bake for 20 minutes

Obviously, order of items is important here (you don't want to bakerepparttar 118045 batter that hasn't been mixed yet :-)

Finally,repparttar 118046 Definition lists. They are most often used when you have a list of items to be defined or explained. Use

and
to start and end your list.
will stand for "term" and
will stand for "definition". Usingrepparttar 118047 previous cake baking topic, here is an example of a Definition list:

Mixrepparttar 118048 batter:
Make sure to mix it until well blended orrepparttar 118049 cake will be lumpy

Put it inrepparttar 118050 oven:
You may need to rotate it middle ofrepparttar 118051 baking cycle

Bake for 20 minutes:
Baking time may vary. Start checking in about 15 minutes.

When you're creating a complex list, with sub-items, you may use nested lists (list inside another list) and mix different kinds of lists together. Experiment with different combinations of lists to see what isrepparttar 118052 best way for you to organize items on your web page.

And here isrepparttar 118053 frosting! Hey, I bet even experienced webmasters might have missedrepparttar 118054 real flexibility of lists.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
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