Your e-Business Quality Partner eValid™ -- Automated Web Quality Solution
Browser-Based, Client-Side, Functional Testing & Validation,
Load & Performance Tuning, Page Timing, Website Analysis,
and Rich Internet Application Monitoring.

WebSite (Web Application) Testing
Dr. Edward Miller
eValid HOME

Download this paper in PDF format.

ABSTRACT

The instant worldwide audience of any Web Browser Enabled Application -- or a WebSite -- make its quality and reliability crucial factors in its success. Correspondingly, the nature of WebSites and Web Applications pose unique software testing challenges. Webmasters, Web applications developers, and WebSite quality assurance managers need tools and methods that meet their specific needs. Mechanized testing via special purpose Web testing software offers the potential to meet these challenges. Our technical approach, based on existing Web browsers, offers a clear solution to most of the technical needs for assuring WebSite quality.

BACKGROUND

WebSites impose some entirely new challenges in the world of software quality! Within minutes of going live, a Web application can have many thousands more users than a conventional, non-Web application. The immediacy of the Web creates immediate expectations of quality and rapid application delivery, but the technical complexities of a WebSite and variances in the browser make testing and quality control that much more difficult, and in some ways, more subtle, than "conventional" client/server or application testing. Automated testing of WebSites is an opportunity and a challenge.

DEFINING WEBSITE QUALITY & RELIABILITY

Like any complex piece of software there is no single, all inclusive quality measure that fully characterizes a WebSite (by which we mean any web browser enabled application).

Dimensions of Quality. There are many dimensions of quality; each measure will pertain to a particular WebSite in varying degrees. Here are some common measures:

Impact of Quality. Quality remains is in the mind of the WebSite user. A poor quality WebSite, one with many broken pages and faulty images, with Cgi-Bin error messages, etc., may cost a lot in poor customer relations, lost corporate image, and even in lost sales revenue. Very complex, disorganized WebSites can sometimes overload the user.

The combination of WebSite complexity and low quality is potentially lethal to Company goals. Unhappy users will quickly depart for a different site; and, they probably won't leave with a good impression.

WEBSITE ARCHITECTURAL FACTORS

A WebSite can be quite complex, and that complexity -- which is what provides the power, of course -- can be a real impediment in assuring WebSite Quality. Add in the possibilities of multiple WebSite page authors, very-rapid updates and changes, and the problem compounds.

Here are the major pieces of WebSites as seen from a Quality perspective.

Browser. The browser is the viewer of a WebSite and there are so many different browsers and browser options that a well-done WebSite is probably designed to look good on as many browsers as possible. This imposes a kind of de facto standard: the WebSite must use only those constructs that work with the majority of browsers. But this still leaves room for a lot of creativity, and a range of technical difficulties. And, multiple browsers' renderings and responses to a WebSite have to be checked.

Display Technologies. What you see in your browser is actually composed from many sources: