How to Perform Black Box Software Testing

How to Perform Black Box Software Testing

Software testing is an activity carried out to test the quality and most importantly the completeness and correctness of a product. There are generally two ways in which this evaluation process is carried out - black box testing and white box testing. Following the ISTQB framework, white box is a much difficult process dealing with all the internal coding and structural verification, black box testing is the technique of testing the functionality of the software by analysing or measuring only its inputs and the resulting output.

The black box verification is done with user point of view is rather an easy process for a tester to implement as it does not require the knowledge of any specific programming language to carry out this software verification and validation process. However, there are certain strategies that every expert black box software analyser adopts to ensure that there are no problems with the functionality of the software. According to ISTQB standards they are as follows:


Consistency Software Testing

 This is a process of verifying the performance of software to evaluate its reliability for real time application. This will verify the bugs if present any in software resulting in production of inappropriate output.

Scenario Testing

 In this kind of process, software is verified & validated for performance of certain activities from user point of view. Here a tester would be able to locate certain standard bugs in the software and hence find the ways to improve it for better customer experience.

Exploration Software Testing Process

 The name itself suggests, that this is a process of exploring the unusual things. In this process, the tester does something unusual to check the reliability of software. For example, the individual may enter so many inputs that may result in its crashing of the system. This process is implemented by the tester to get answer to the questions like Does the software get inconsistent? Does it still work with unusual conditions or extremities?

Combination Testing

 An individual would initially divide the software to be analysed in various sections. Each of these is then combined in different combinations to find out whether the software works as expected or not.
Decision Table Testing. Decision table contains two columns - causes or inputs and their effects that are the outputs. This process will enable the tester to analyse the performance of the system with respect to different types of inputs.

Software Error Check Up

 Here an individual would consider the test cases where he\she can find when actually the software produces an error or not. Questions like what should not be allowed for the software, can the system handle any error properly in the situation it arises unexpectedly and so on are answered through this process.

One of the best the ways to learn black box software verification methodology is through practical methods that are usually taught in the software testing training. It is better to take up a complete software testing training course such as ISTQB from a reputed institute in order to learn black box procedure along with other prominent methods for software validation and verification. This training would impart practical knowledge of various software verification strategies to the learner and hence would be the best way to learn the software validation process for better jobs.

Author: Niral modi
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