Software testing techniques

The choice of software testing technique for a project leads to a successful testing. The software testing is no more conducted as a random process. With the development of the IT standards, the well organised and structured procedures, tools, techniques, documentation have been identified and standardised for software testing. The software testing is carefully planned to organise and conduct the testing. A successful software testing ensures the delivery of failure proof software.

The software testing techniques are also evolved to meet the requirements of testing variety of software. The various factors taken into account to choose the testing technique are:

Type of software. Software testing is context dependent. There are commercial softwares, safety critical software, and so on. The testing technique is chosen to suit the scenario of the system type.
Complexity of the software. The software complexity can vary based on the purpose of the software for which it is developed. A simple software for marketing services and products include few pages, a complex software can include complex functionalities involving high level calculations and precision.
Risk. Certain software like software for spacecraft, safety critical system are high risk based systems which can lead to loss of property and life of human. The types of risk involved can also vary along with the risk levels.
Budget and time. The clients may come with various budget and time constraints for the projects. The software testing technique has to be chosen appropriately. The experience based software testing techniques are usually employed for projects with budget and time constraints.
Development approach. The software development life cycle model is also considered to choose the software testing technique. The SDLC model like agile requires a software testing technique that can respond to quick and frequent development scenarios.

The various other factors considered are standards, customers requirements, project objective, tester skills, software purpose and so on. The software testing techniques can be white box testing techniques to test at program level and black box testing techniques to test the behavior.