Basic QA testing interview questions and answers

What is Quality?

·         Customer satisfaction? Subjective term. It will depend on who the ‘customer’ is. Each type of customer will have their own view on ‘quality’

What is Software Quality?

·         Measurement of how close is actual software product to the expected (intended) product

·         Customer satisfaction (to who?)

·    Quality Software: reasonably bug-free, delivered on time and within budget, meets requirements and/or expectations, and is maintainable

What is Software Quality Assurance?

·    Software QA is the process of monitoring and improving all activities associated with software development, from requirements gathering, design and reviews to coding, testing and implementation.

What is the difference between Software Testing and Software QA?

·    Testing is mainly an ‘error detection’ process

·    Software QA is ‘preventative’. It aims to ensure quality in the methods & processes. (“Quality Assurance”  measures the quality of processes used to create a quality product)

What is Software Testing?

·    Software Testing is the process of analyzing the software in order to detect the differences between existing and required conditions and to evaluate the features of the software.  It involves the entire software development process:

            - monitoring and improving the process

            - making sure that any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed

            - ensuring that problems are found and dealt with, at the earliest possible stage

·    The purpose of testing is verification, validation and error detection (in order to find and fix the problems)
- Verification is checking for conformance and consistency by evaluating the results against pre-specified requirements. (Verification: Are we building the system right?)
- Validation is the process of checking that what has been specified is what the user actually wanted. (Validation: Are we building the right system?)
- Error Detection: finding if things happen when they shouldn’t or things don’t happen when they should.

Is it possible to find/fix all the bugs in a software product before it goes to the customers? Why test?

·         To establish and to enforce business systems of the QA Organization (Test planning, bug tracking, bug reporting, test automation, release certification, and others)

What is black/white box testing?

·         Black box software testing is done without access to the source code.

·         White box testing is done with access to the code. Bugs are reported at the source code level, not behavioral.

Describe a bug?

·         Mismatch between actual behavior of a software application and its intended (expected) behavior. We learn about expected behavior from requirements, specifications, other technical documentation.

What is use case?

·         Use cases are used by Business Analysts as a format for specifying system requirements. Each use case represents completed business operation performed by user.  From the QA prospective we would need to execute End-To-End test to make sure the requirement is implemented.

·         Find more here: http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid92_gci334062,00.html

What is the most important impact QA can have on a product development process?

·         Clarifying requirements

·         Bringing down percentage of code re-written due to the change in requirements

What is Negative testing? Positive?

·   Positive testing aimed at showing software works as intended when user does what he/she does correct actions.

·   Negative testing aimed at showing that software handles properly situations in which user acts not as user is supposed to act (invalid inputs, unreasonable selections of settings, etc.)

Which type of testing results in highest number of bugs found?

·         Negative testing (versus Positive testing of same type)

What is the software development life cycle?

·         The software development life cycle (SDLC) is a conceptual model used in project management that describes the stages involved in an information system development project, from an initial feasibility study through maintenance of the completed application. Read more -http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid92_gci755068,00.html

·         And more - http://portnov.readyhosting.com/RU/sdlc.html

What is a Test Case?

• Set of conditions and/or variables under which a tester will determine if a requirement upon an application is satisfied

What does Test Case include?

When planning for testing the test case:

• Test case ID
• The purpose (Title, Description) of the test case
• An instruction on how to get from the application base state to a verifiable application output or expected result
• Expected result

When execute test cases we need two more columns:

• Actual result
• PASS/FAIL indication

What is a test plan?

• Document that describes the objectives, scope, approach, and focus of a software testing effort.
• The process of preparing a test plan is a useful way to think through the efforts needed to validate the acceptability of a software product. The completed document will help people outside the test group understand the 'why' and 'how' of product validation. It should be thorough enough to be useful but not so thorough that no one outside the test group will read it.

What does Test Plan include?

The following are some of the items that might be included in a test plan, depending on the particular project:

    * Title

    * Identification of software including version/release numbers

    * Revision history of document including authors, dates, approvals

    * Table of Contents

    * Purpose of document, intended audience

    * Objective of testing effort

    * Software product overview

    * Relevant related document list, such as requirements, design documents, other test plans, etc.

    * Relevant standards or legal requirements

    * Traceability requirements

    * Relevant naming conventions and identifier conventions

    * Overall software project organization and personnel/contact-info/responsibilities

    * Test organization and personnel/contact-info/responsibilities

    * Assumptions and dependencies

    * Project risk analysis

    * Testing priorities and focus

    * Scope and limitations of testing

    * Test outline - a decomposition of the test approach by test type, feature, functionality, process, system, module, etc. as applicable

    * Outline of data input equivalence classes, boundary value analysis, error classes

    * Test environment - hardware, operating systems, other required software, data configurations, interfaces to other systems

    * Test environment validity analysis - differences between the test and production systems and their impact on test validity.

    * Test environment setup and configuration issues

    * Software migration processes

    * Software CM processes

    * Test data setup requirements

    * Database setup requirements

    * Outline of system-logging/error-logging/other capabilities, and tools such as screen capture software, that will be used to help describe and report bugs

    * Discussion of any specialized software or hardware tools that will be used by testers to help track the cause or source of bugs

    * Test automation - justification and overview

    * Test tools to be used, including versions, patches, etc.

    * Test script/test code maintenance processes and version control

    * Problem tracking and resolution - tools and processes

    * Project test metrics to be used

    * Reporting requirements and testing deliverables

    * Software entrance and exit criteria

    * Initial sanity testing period and criteria

    * Test suspension and restart criteria

    * Personnel allocation

    * Personnel pre-training needs

    * Test site/location

    * Outside test organizations to be utilized and their purpose, responsibilities, deliverables, contact persons, and coordination issues

    * Relevant proprietary, classified, security, and licensing issues

    * Open issues

    * Appendix - glossary, acronyms, etc.

Write test cases for a text field?

• 5 test cases for capacity including 2 for each boundary and one for the class between boundaries
• 3 test cases for valid/invalid input of letters, digits, special characters
• One test cases for each allowed special character (email field as an example)
• Functionality testing if there is any functionality (validation of input as an example, case sensitivity, required field, etc.)

What is Test matrix

Data collection mechanism. It provides a structure for testing the effect of combining two or more variables, circumstances, types of hardware, or events. Row and column headings identify the test conditions. Cells keep the results of test execution.

If there are so many settings/options to choose, how to write test cases?

• Test cases should be developed for all most common potential scenarios
• They should cover most of the positive input

Beside test case & test plan, what documents are required to write?

·        Check Lists

·        Test matrices

·        Test design specs

·        End-to-end tests

·        Test summary reports

·        Bug reports

Describe risk analysis

Risk analysis means the actions taken to avoid things going wrong on a software development project, things that might negatively impact the scope, quality, timeliness, or cost of a project. This is, of course, a shared responsibility among everyone involved in a project. However, there needs to be a 'buck stops here' person who can consider the relevant tradeoffs when decisions are required, and who can ensure that everyone is handling their risk management responsibilities.

How will you write test cases for testing fields LOGIN & PASSOWRD, positive and negative testing?

Testing boundary conditions? Why? How?

• Boundary value analysis is a methodology for designing test cases that concentrates software testing effort on cases near the limits of valid ranges.
• Boundary value analysis is a method which refines equivalence partitioning.  It generates test cases that highlight errors better than equivalence partitioning. The trick is to concentrate software testing efforts at the extreme ends of the equivalence classes.  At those points when input values change from valid to invalid errors are most likely to occur.  As well, boundary value analysis broadens the portions of the business requirement document used to generate tests.

For example, if a valid range of quantity on hand is -9,999 through 9,999, write test cases that include: 

1. the valid test case  quantity on hand is  -9,999, 

2. the valid test case  quantity on hand is 9,999, 

3. the invalid test case  quantity on hand is -10,000  and 

4. the invalid test case  quantity on hand is   10,000 

What is the difference between a test case and a test plan?

• Test plan is the most comprehensive Software Testing document that describes the objectives, scope, approach, and focus of a software testing effort
• Test case is the smallest Software Testing document that describes both typical and atypical situation (set of conditions and/or variables) that may occur in the use of an application (under which a tester will determine if a requirement upon an application is satisfied).

Which documents would you refer to when creating Test Cases?

All business and technical documentation available:

- PRD - Product Requirements Document

- BRD - Business Requirements Document

- Functional Specifications

- Manuals and Help

- Use Cases

- Test Design

- Third party publications (books, published by independent authors)

What is Business Requirements Document (BRD)?

BRD is written by the Business Analysts. It details the business solution for a project including the documentation of customer needs and expectations.

The most common objectives of the BRD are:

- To gain agreement with stakeholders 

- To provide a foundation to communicate to a technology service provider what the solution needs to do to satisfy the customer's and business’ needs 

- To provide input into the next phase for this project 

- To describe what not how the customer/business needs will be met by the solution

What are Bug Report components?

What fields do you fill out in a Bug Report?

Describe to me the basic elements you put in a defect/bug report?

·         Report number: Unique number given to the report

·         Application / Module being tested

·         Version & release number

·         Problem Summary / Short Description / Synopsis

·         Steps to reproduce (Detailed Description)

·         Severity (Critical, Serious, Minor, Suggestion)

·         Priority (High, Medium, Low)

·         Environment (Software and/or hardware configuration)

·         Reported by

·         Assigned to

·         Status (Open, Pending, Fixed, Closed, cannot reproduce, etc.)

·         Resolution / Notes

·         Keywords

If you find a bug and the developer says it is as-designed, what can you do? 

- find an exact requirement, which defines the way it should be designed
- if there is no specific requirement compare to same feature implemented in quality applications (ask your manager which applications to compare to)

How do you write a bug report?

·         Rule of WWW - What happened, Where it happened, under Which circumstances

·         Write one bug report for each fix to be verified

·         Bug report should be as complete as possible

·         Bug reports are as concise as possible

·         Report a bug immediately, do not postpone

·         Use technical terms, not "people off the street" language

What is the most important part of bug report?

·         Steps to reproduce

·         Short Description

·         Severity

·         Priority

·         Status

What is the bug life cycle?

The bug should go through the life cycle to be closed. Here are the stages:
- bug found
- bug reported
- bug assigned to developer
- bug fixed by developer
- fix verified by tester
- bug closed

How can a tester be sure that bug was fixed? 

- execute the steps in the bug report
- make sure the fixed bug does not result in new bugs in same area.

Describe the QA Process

      QA processes include:
1) Test Planning Process
2) Test Development Process
3) Test Execution Process
4) Defect Management Process
5) Test Reporting Process 

What is Unit Testing?

·         The goal of unit testing is to isolate each part of the program and show that the individual parts (units) are correct.

·         A unit is the smallest testable part of an application. It may be an individual function or procedure.

·         Unit testing is provided by developers, not testers.

What is API Testing?

·         Testing of an API (Application Programming Interface), which is a collection of software functions and procedures.

·         API testing is mostly used for testing system software, application software or libraries.

·         It is a white box testing method.

·         API testing (done by QA Team) is different from Unit testing (done by developers).

What is the Performance Testing? ?

Performance testing is to determine how fast some aspect of a system performs under a particular workload. It can also serve to validate and verify other quality attributes of the system, such as scalability, reliability and resource usage.
 

What is Stress Testing?

Stress test puts a emphasis on robustness, availability, and error handling under a heavy load, rather than on what would be considered correct behavior under normal circumstances. The goal may be to ensure the software doesn't crash in conditions of insufficient computational resources (such as memory or disk space), unusually high concurrency, or denial of service attacks.

What is a Regression Testing?

Partial retesting of a modified program to make sure that no errors were introduced while making changes to the code (developing new or fixing existing one)

What is an Acceptance Testing?

Acceptance testing is black-box testing performed on a software prior to its delivery. Acceptance testing by the system provider is distinguished from acceptance testing by the customer (user acceptance testing - UAT).

What do you prefer: white or black box testing?

- Stick to the objective stated in your resume (Portnov School graduates normally apply for black box testing positions)

How do you determine when you have done enough testing?

Testing process comes to the point at which additional tests will not significantly change quality of the software.

Which tools are used to write Test Cases?
- Test Management Tools such as HP Quality Center, Zephyr, Rational TestManager

- Many companies use spreadsheets (Excel) or word processors (Word)

What is walk-through meeting?
Walk-through meeting is a form of software peer review in which a designer or programmer leads members of the development team and other interested parties through a software product, and the participants ask questions and make comments about possible errors, violation of development standards, and other problems.

 
What is Build?
In a programming context, a build is a version of a program. As a rule, a build is a pre-release version and as such is identified by a build number, rather than by a release number. Reiterative (repeated) builds are an important part of the development process. Throughout development, application components are collected and repeatedly compiled for testing purposes.

What is Test Strategy?

A test strategy is an outline that describes the testing portion of the software development cycle. It is created to inform project managers, testers, and developers about some key issues of the testing process.

What does Test Strategy include?
This includes the testing objective, methods of testing new functions, total time and resources required for the project, and the testing environment.