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Glossary of Software Testing Terms:
M
This glossary of software testing
terms and conditions is a compilation of knowledge, gathered
over time, from many different sources. It is provided “as-is”
in good faith, without any warranty as to the accuracy or
currency of any definition or other information contained
herein. If you have any questions or queries about the contents
of this glossary, please contact
Project Realms directly.
Maintainability
The ease with which the system/software can be modified to
correct faults, modified to meet new requirements, modified
to make future maintenance easier, or adapted to a changed
environment.
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Maintenance Requirements
A specification of the required maintenance needed for the system/software.
The released software often needs to be revised and/or upgraded
throughout its lifecycle. Therefore it is essential that the
software can be easily maintained, and any errors found during
rework and upgrading.
Within traditional software testing techniques, script maintenance
is often a problem as it can be very completed and time consuming
to ensure correct maintenance of the software as the scripts
these tools use need updating every time the application under
test changes.
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Manual Testing
Manual testing is the oldest type of software testing. It requires
a tester to perform manual test operations on the test software
without the help of test automation. Manual testing is a laborious
activity that requires the tester to possess a certain set of
qualities; to be patient, observant, speculative, creative,
innovative, open minded, resourceful, un-opinionated, and skillful.
As a tester, it is always advisable to use manual white box
testing and black-box testing techniques on the test software.
Manual testing helps discover and record any software bugs or
discrepancies related to the functionality of the product
Manual testing can be augmented by test automation. It is possible
to record and playback manual steps and write automated test
scrip(s) using test automation tools. Although, test automation
tools will only help execute test scripts written primarily
for executing a particular specification and functionality.
Test automation tools lack the ability of decision-making and
recording any unscripted discrepancies during program execution.
It is recommended that one should perform manual testing of
the entire product at least a couple of times before actually
deciding to automate the more mundane activities of the product.
Manual testing helps discover defects related to the usability
testing and GUI testing area. While performing manual tests
the software application can be validated whether it meets the
various standards defined for effective and efficient usage
and accessibility. For example, the standard location of the
OK button on a screen is on the left and the CANCEL button on
the right. During manual testing you might discover that on
some screen, it is not. This is a new defect related to the
usability of the screen. In addition, there could be many cases
where the GUI is not displayed correctly and the basic functionality
of the program is correct. Such bugs are not detectable using
test automation tools.
Repetitive manual testing can be difficult to perform on large
software applications or applications having very large dataset
coverage. This drawback is compensated for by using manual black-box
testing techniques including equivalence partitioning and boundary
value analysis. Using these, the vast dataset specifications
can be divided and converted into a more manageable and achievable
set of test suites.
There is no complete substitute for manual testing. Manual testing
is crucial for testing software applications more thoroughly.
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Metric
A standard of measurement. Software metrics are the statistics
describing the structure or content of a program. A metric should
be a real objective measurement of something such as number
of bugs per lines of code.
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Monitors
Tools, which are used to measure performance characteristics
of a specific component. The Controller has monitors that can
measure system performance, network delay, application and web
server performance.
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Modified Condition/Decision Coverage
The percentage of all branch condition outcomes that independently
affect a decision outcome that have been exercised by a test
case suite.
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Modified Condition/Decision Testing
A test case design technique in which test cases are designed
to execute branch condition outcomes that independently affect
a decision outcome.
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Monkey Testing
Testing a system or an application on the fly, i.e. a unit test
with no specific end result in mind.
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Multiple Condition Coverage
See Branch
Condition Combination Coverage.
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Mutation Analysis
A method to determine test case suite thoroughness by measuring
the extent to which a test case suite can discriminate the program
from slight variants (mutants) of the program. See also Error
Seeding.
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Mutation Testing
Testing done on the application where bugs are purposely added
to it. See Bebugging.
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