Chapter 14. Website Testing

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Web Page Fundamentals

• Black-Box Testing

• Gray-Box Testing

• White-Box Testing

• Configuration and Compatibility Testing

• Usability Testing

• Introducing Automation

The testing techniques that you've learned in previous chapters have been fairly generic. They've been presented by using small programs such as Windows WordPad, Calculator, and Paint to demonstrate testing fundamentals and how to apply them. This final chapter of Part III, "Applying Your Testing Skills," is geared toward testing a specific type of softwareInternet web pages. It's a fairly timely topic, something that you're likely familiar with, and a good real-world example to apply the techniques that you've learned so far.

What you'll find in this chapter is that website testing encompasses many areas, including configuration testing, compatibility testing, usability testing, documentation testing, security, and, if the site is intended for a worldwide audience, localization testing. Of course, black-box, white-box, static, and dynamic testing are always a given.

This chapter isn't meant to be a complete how-to guide for testing Internet websites, but it will give you a straightforward practical example of testing something real and give you a good head start if your first job happens to be looking for bugs in someone's website.

Highlights of this chapter include

• What fundamental parts of a web page need testing

• What basic white-box and black-box techniques apply to web page testing

• How configuration and compatibility testing apply

• Why usability testing is the primary concern of web pages

• How to use tools to help test your website