We guess everyone has faced this or that bug in some application, which ruined our experience with it. When it’s the app you just use, it’s not a great problem, but if it's the solution you offer your clients, it’s unacceptable!
Why may failures and bugs in web products happen? It’s all due to the lack of testing since this stage is often undervalued. We insist that application testing is imperative for smooth product operation.
1. Web application testing components to start
In case you aim to create an app, which provides the state of art user experience, you should not neglect the testing phase. More detailed information about the necessary steps and a kind of web application testing checklist you can find below.
1.1 Functionality testing
The first thing you should check in your product is functionality. The solution you order or develop should meet all the requirements and specifications you indicated. The things which to be verified in the first turn are proper database connection and correct work of the links. Then forms should be verified multiple times with varied data input and cookies, HTML and CSS testing for syntax errors and compliance with standards.
It’s vital to make sure that the business scenarios work as you expect. Unanticipated user steps should be obligatory tried at this stage as well.
1.2 Usability testing
This stage should comprise navigation and content testing for visibility, legibility, and consistency. You should make sure that all the instructions provided are clear, simple and serve the purposes of the users.
Each page should contain the main menu and meaningful content. An important element for proper usability is the “Search”, it makes the search of the necessary info quick and smooth. Do not forget to validate the element if its present.
1.3 Interface Testing
This stage is essential to ensure the database, app and web servers interact correctly, without failures, and if there are interruptions they are handled in a due way. To test the interface, you should check the overall compatibility of the backend, soft- and hardware, network and database. Unexpected in-between user actions should also be tested to find out whether the major transaction takes place correctly, even in case of reset in the middle of the process.
1.4 Database Testing
As a business owner, you should check the proper maintenance of data integrity when the database info is altered. Besides, you should check the compliance with the app business logic, as well as that of triggers, store processes, views, etc. The response time and error notifications of queries should be fine-tuned at this stage.
1.5 Compatibility testing
These procedures help to verify if the app is displayed properly on all gadgets and devices. OS and browser compatibility, JavaScript and AJAX functioning, as well as authentication, are the aspects to check here.
1.6 Performance Testing
This stage comprises the app performance tests under standard and peak loads, variable connection speed and stress conditions. It’s vital to ensure that the architecture of the application can support it in a due way at peak loads. The product and infrastructure breaking points, bottlenecks, and crash recovery scenarios should be checked here and the improvements made if it’s necessary.
1.7 Security testing
Customer security should always be the priority of any developer and businessman, but it is specifically vital for e-commerce related products, which store personal and financial information of the user.
We’ll provide a more detailed web app security testing checklist further on, but it should be kept in mind that unauthorized access to protected pages should be forbidden, restricted files should be downloadable only on condition of special access, and the SSL certificate should be applied.
1.8 Crowd Testing
This stage presupposes testing of digital solutions by a group of people to unravel unnoticed defects and operational drawbacks. The feedback of the people who have a fresh eye trying your product may be extremely helpful, throwing light on usability aspects, features, and bugs you failed to notice initially.
2. What aspects you need to pay special attention
As we have already mentioned above, security should always be the major priority of IT and business specialists. That’s why we offer a kind of web app security testing tutorial to our audience to ensure their products are safe and crafted perfectly. So what should you do?
2.1 Web application security testing with browsers
When your environment and access to tools and scripts is limited, a browser might be enough to do some checking. However, it cannot be a full-fledged alternative to conventional processes.
Most of the browsers allow to check and change user agents, alter JavaScript or CSS modes, encode, decode, manage cookies and local storage, capture screen-shots, see headers, check offline mode.
To check your app security in the browser, you should first of all open developer tools. In most cases, the F12 button will help, however, use it mainly for IE and Edge, but there are other ways as well. Windows Dev tools are opened through the combination of Ctrl-Shift - I, use Cmd - Option - I on Mac devices. As to Google Chrome and Mozilla Fireworks right-click on the web page and then on Inspect.
2.2 Penetration Testing
To perform it a tester should simulate unauthorized attacks, aiming to access to protected data. The probability of hacker attacks and data leakage are checked in such a way.
The procedures at this stage comprise scanning of vulnerability and pen tests. Scanning helps to find out the application bottlenecks, and verify if it’s properly configured to prevent attacks. Besides, it is useful for defining how the product security can be fixed and optimized.
Pen Tests are a method of preventive control, which helps to define if unauthorized access is possible and how it may happen. It helps test the publicly exposed constituents like firewalls and DNS routers, and to find the most sensitive loopholes.
The Methodologies and standards of Security Testing are multiple and variable, however, each product demands specific types of tests to be carried out. Still, each tester should work out his own approach based on the peculiarities of the product and standards compliance.
2.3 Web application security testing
There are two main types of such testing DAST and SAST. The first- Dynamic approach presupposes searching for the weaknesses of a web app, which can be ill-used by the attackers, breaking into the system from the outside. To perform such a test, you do not need source code, that’s why can be performed rather often and quickly.
Static Testing includes a more inside-out approach of searching the weaknesses in the source code. Thus SAST can provide a real-time outlook on the web app security.
Conclusion
Testing should become an essential and obligatory part of any product development procedures, the major priority should be given to security testing. In case you’ve developed or ordered an app for your business needs, you can test it yourself, however, it’s advisable to use expert support for such cases. Axisbits is always ready to perform your product testing and provide advice or even take up its optimization. It will help you launch a perfect app and gain new and returning clients.
