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Web Application Design
Interested in a quick checklist for testing a web application?
The following 10 steps cover the 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, modify the 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 correctly the application functions, you may
want to make testing the correctness of the business functionality
a higher priority than testing for navigational consistency
throughout the application.
If you are testing an application that will be used to solicit
external funding, you may want to put testing the aspects
of the application that impact the visual appeal as the 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. Use the 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
account the 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 to the appropriate technical team members.
You will also need a way to keep management informed on the
status of your testing efforts. If your company already has
a system in place to track this type of information, don't
try to reinvent the 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 of the easy-to-setup online
systems such as the one found at http://www.adminitrack.com.
By using an online system, you can make it much easier on
yourself by eliminating the 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 sure the 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
that the correct data has been saved to the database when
the 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 all the fields that collect information
from the 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 and the last name
contains an apostrophe, such as O’Brien? Different combinations
of databases and database drivers handle the 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 - Verifying the HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is the computer language
sent from your web server to the web browser on your users'
computer to display the pages that make up your web application.
The World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) manages the HTML
specification. One major objective of HTML is to provide the
ability for anyone from anywhere to access information on
the World Wide Web. This concept generally holds true if you
conform strictly to the relevant version of the HTML specification
that you will support. Unfortunately, in the 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 with the 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 verifying the 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, the 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, the better off your web application will be.
Step 7 - Usability Testing
In usability testing, you'll be looking at aspects of your
web application that affect the user's experience, such as:
· How easy is it to navigate through your web application?
· Is it obvious to the user which actions are available
to him or her?
· Is the look-and-feel of your web application consistent
from page to page, including font sizes and colors?
The book, "Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to
Web Usability" by Steve Krug and Roger Black, provides a practical
approach to the topic of usability. I refer to it often, and
recommend it highly.
In addition to the traditional navigation and look-and-feel
issues, Section 508 compliance is another area of importance.
The 1998 Amendment to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
spells out accessibility requirements for individuals with
certain disabilities.
For instance, if a user forgets to fill in a required field,
you might think it is a good idea to present the user with
a friendly error message and change the color of the field
label to red or some other conspicuous color. However, changing
the color of the field label would not really help a user
who has difficulty deciphering colors. The use of color may
help most users, but you would want to use an additional visual
clue, such as placing an asterisk beside the field in question
or additionally making the text bold.
For more details, refer to http://www.section508.gov. Another
great resource that can help analyze your HTML pages for Section
508 compliance can be found at http://www.cast.org/bobby/.
If you are working with the United States federal government,
Section 508 compliance is not only good design, it most likely
is a legal requirement.
Step 8 - Load Testing
In performing load testing, you want to simulate how users
will use your web application in the real world. The earlier
you perform load testing the better. Simple design changes
can often make a significant impact on the performance and
scalability of your web application. A good overview of how
to perform load testing can be found on Microsoft's Developer
Network (MSDN) website. A topic closely related to load testing
is performance tuning. Performance tuning should be tightly
integrated with the design of your application. If you are
using Microsoft technology, the following article is a great
resource for understanding the specifics of tuning a web application.
People hate to wait for a web page to load. As general rule,
try to make sure that all of your pages load in 15 seconds
or less. This rule will of course depend on your particular
application and the expectations of the people using it.
Step 9 - User Acceptance Testing
By performing user acceptance testing, you are making sure
your web application fits the use for which it was intended.
Simply stated, you are making sure your web application makes
things easier for the user and not harder. One effective way
to handle user acceptance testing is by setting up a beta
test for your web application.
One article to help you get started planning an effective
beta test is: Supercharged Beta Test by Joshua Grossnickle
and Oliver Raskin, May 14, 2001 which can be found at: http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/20/index1a.html?tw=design.
This article points out the critical aspects of setting up
a beta test including how to identify beta testers and how
to obtain their feedback. The main point to remember in user
acceptance testing is to listen to what the people using your
web application are saying. Their feedback will be critical
to the ultimate success of your web application.
Step 10 - Testing Security
With the large number of highly skilled hackers in the world,
security should be a huge concern for anyone building a web
application. You need to test how secure your web application
is from both external and internal threats. The security of
your web application should be planned for and verified by
qualified security specialists. If you think security is a
subject that is over-hyped, check out Steve Gibson's account
of how a 13 year old hacker took his
After performing your initial security testing, make sure
to also perform ongoing security audits to ensure your web
application remains secure over time as people and technology
change. Testing a web application can be a totally overwhelming
task. The best advice I can give you is to keep prioritizing
and focusing on the most important aspects of your application
and don’t forget to solicit help from your fellow team
members. By following the steps above coupled with your own
expertise and knowledge, you will have a web application you
can be proud of and that your users will love. You will also
be giving your company the opportunity to deploy a web application
that could become a run away success and possibly makes tons
of money, saves millions of lives, or slashes customer support
costs in half. Even better, because of your awesome web application,
you may get profiled on CNN, which causes the killer job offers
to start flooding in. Proper testing is an integral part of
creating a positive user experience, which can translate into
the ultimate success of your web application. Even if your
web application doesn’t get featured on CNN, CNBC, or
Fox News, you can take great satisfaction in knowing how you
and your team’s diligent testing efforts made all the
difference in your successful deployment.
Copyright © 2002 Krishen Kota, All Rights Reserved
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