ITECH7409 Software Testing

Tutorial 8

This Tutorial sheet comprise two parts: Review Questions and Further Exercises. The Review Questions
have been designed as a revision exercise covering some of the main points covered in the lectures.
The Further Exercises are generally exploratory in nature being extensions of the lecture materials.
Students will benefit if they discuss their solutions to both parts in small groups. All questions should
be attempted and it is expected that students may need to complete some of the tutorial in their own
time. Note: some of the questions in Further Exercises may require the use of a computer with some
specific software and internet connection.

As the final exam will draw material from lectures, tutorials and assignments, students are strongly
advised to work consistently and to attend both lectures and tutorials.

Review Questions

1. How is the role of tester in an Agile software development different to that of a traditional system
development?
Testers are part of the whole-team approach in an Agile software to build software system. Testers are in
teams with developers and software users. The team’s main goal is to remove defects early and improve
system quality.

2. What is the ‘Agile Manifesto” and what does it espouse?

The Agile Manifesto is a mission statement of Agile software that espouses a different approach than of
traditional development. Its four values are
 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
 Working software over comprehensive documentation
 Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
 Responding to change over following a plan

3. According to a diagram by Richard Leavitt, how is an Agile development upside down to a Waterfall model
development?
In an Agile project, the features are the starting place for development and the project is goal driven trying
to create a cost-effective system in time efficient manner. This is opposite to a waterfall model
development which starts with a set of requirements which drives the various phases of development in
which costs and schedules can blow out.
.

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4. What is a software increment or iteration?
Iteration can be defined as a development cycle that ends in a version of a system. It involves a planning
period in which user stories are developed. These stories, features, products and functions they describe
are then developed. Integration into the system and testing take place throughout the iteration.
Documentation is written, reviewed and approved throughout an iteration.

5. What is a product backlog?

Product backlogs are based on user stories that are used to develop the features of the product. The
backlog has the user stories prioritized by the team and the backlog includes all the product related
deliverables

6. In the context of an Agile development, what are user stories?

User stories are the communication and interaction between developers, testers and users that can be
recorded on cards for sorting and prioritizing. They attempt to identify and clarify valuable business user
requirements. Their goal is to prevent misunderstandings or misinterpretations of user requirements.

7. In the context of an Agile development, does testing follow the usual phases of unit, integration, system
and acceptance testing? Explain your answer.
In agile development testing is done in each iteration. Unit and integration testing are similar to of
traditional development but occur periodically being revisited in each iteration. System and acceptance
testing are more blurred as the users are in close contact throughout the development with the testing
members of the team.

8. What are the usual types of acceptance testing undertaken in an Agile development?
Agile teams employ different forms of acceptance testing including feature verification testing which
involves testing against the user story’s acceptance criteria.
It also includes feature validation testing, which usually determines whether the feature is fit for use to
improve visibility of the progress made and to receive real feedback from the business stake holders.
Alpha nd beta tests also occur along with nonfunctional requirements such as performance and stress
testing.

9. At what stage does regression testing occur in an Agile development?

Regression testing occurs throughout iteration. This involves re-running the automated unite tests and
feature verification tests from the current iteration and previous iterations, usually via a continuous
integration framework.

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10. List some of the documentation that an Agile tester needs to be concerned with.
Since agile projects deal only with documentation, testers need to concern themselves and work closely
with
Requirements specifications
 User documentation
 Code, automated unit test code
 Descriptions of data flow, such as entity relationship diagrams for database
 Test plans and test results

11. What is the main message that presentation from Richard Leavitt is trying to convey about his company’s
transition from traditional development to an Agile mode of development?
The main message from Richard Leavitt is trying to convey about his company’s transition from traditional
development to an Agile mode of development is that so much testing time and effort in a traditional
development is devoted to tracking the metrics of defect counting that developers are unable to answer
important questions about the overall progress, status and product. He contends that this is not the case
with an Agile approach.as iteration test documents readily reveal the status, progress and readiness of the
development with everyone on the team working towards delivery.

Further exercises

12. In this exercise you will be dynamically testing a website developed for the Federation University
Book Club.
Firstly, via Moodle download and the zipped file for the website FederationUniBookClub.zip
Next, unzip the file and open the index.html file which is the home page for the Book Club.

Dynamically test each web page in the website. Find as many errors and usability issues as you
can. Hint: Check all links, and screen resolutions for tablets and mobiles as well as computers.
Write a report providing feedback to the developer and include a list for each page of these
problems to provide feedback for the developer to correct.
For instance:
Home page

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 o “Lorem ipsum” text has been used instead of the correct information to be displayed
in the paragraphs.
o Etc.

There are a number of known errors introduced into the website. They
are:

• Home
o Misspelt Federation in name of club
• About Us o About us is not centred.
o Page is missing it's title tag, look at the tab up top.
• Book List o Probably a bunch of spelling
mistakes
o Link on Dracula novel does not open in a new window (click the picture)
o There is incomplete code on the last bullet point in Dracula "</p" o
Oliver Twist is missing it's cover o Oliver Twist link does not exist
• Join us o Surname has to be at least 9
characters
o Email checks that there is a "." in it but does not check for an "@" o
Mobile number field is a password input and not a text/number input
• Global bug
o tablet layout is not centred, it pulls to the left

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