QA glossary of terms

Acceptance Testing: Formal testing conducted to determine whether or not a system satisfies its acceptance criteria—enables an end user to determine whether or not to accept the system.

Affinity Diagram: A group process that takes large amounts of language data, such as a list developed by brainstorming, and divides it into categories.

Alpha Testing: Testing of a software product or system conducted at the developer’s site by the end user.

Audit: An inspection/assessment activity that verifies compliance with plans, policies, and procedures, and ensures that resources are conserved. Audit is a staff function; it serves as the “eyes and ears” of management.

Automated Testing: That part of software testing that is assisted with software tool(s) that does not require operator input, analysis, or evaluation.

Beta Testing: Testing conducted at one or more end user sites by the end user of a delivered software product or system.

Black-box Testing: Functional testing based on requirements with no knowledge of the internal program structure or data. Also known as closed-box testing. Black box testing indicates whether or not a program meets required specifications by spotting faults of omission -- places where the specification is not fulfilled.

Bottom-up Testing: An integration testing technique that tests the low-level components first using test drivers for those components that have not yet been developed to call the low-level components for test.

Boundary Value Analysis: A test data selection technique in which values are chosen to lie along data extremes. Boundary values include maximum, mini-mum, just inside/outside boundaries, typical values, and error values.

Brainstorming: A group process for generating creative and diverse ideas.

Branch Coverage Testing: A test method satisfying coverage criteria that requires each decision point at each possible branch to be executed at least once.

Bug: A design flaw that will result in symptoms exhibited by some object (the object under test or some other object) when an object is subjected to an appropriate test.

Cause-and-Effect (Fishbone) Diagram: A tool used to identify possible causes of a problem by representing the relationship between some effect and its possible cause.

Cause-effect Graphing: A testing technique that aids in selecting, in a systematic way, a high-yield set of test cases that logically relates causes to effects to produce test cases. It has a beneficial side effect in pointing out incompleteness and ambiguities in specifications.

Checksheet: A form used to record data as it is gathered.

Clear-box Testing: Another term for white-box testing. Structural testing is sometimes referred to as clear-box testing, since “white boxes” are considered opaque and do not really permit visibility into the code. This is also known as glass-box or open-box testing.

Client: The end user that pays for the product received, and receives the benefit from the use of the product.

Control Chart: A statistical method for distinguishing between common and special cause variation exhibited by processes.

Customer (end user): The individual or organization, internal or external to the producing organization, that receives the product.

Cyclomatic Complexity: A measure of the number of linearly independent paths through a program module.

Data Flow Analysis: Consists of the graphical analysis of collections of (sequential) data definitions and reference patterns to determine constraints that can be placed on data values at various points of executing the source program.

Debugging: The act of attempting to determine the cause of the symptoms of malfunctions detected by testing or by frenzied user complaints.

Defect: NOTE: Operationally, it is useful to work with two definitions of a defect:
1) From the producer’s viewpoint: a product requirement that has not been met or a product attribute possessed by a product or a function performed by a product that is not in the statement of requirements that define the product.
2) From the end user’s viewpoint: anything that causes end user dissatisfaction, whether in the statement of requirements or not.

Defect Analysis: Using defects as data for continuous quality improvement. Defect analysis generally seeks to classify defects into categories and identify possible causes in order to direct process improvement efforts.

Defect Density: Ratio of the number of defects to program length (a relative number).

Desk Checking: A form of manual static analysis usually performed by the originator. Source code documentation, etc., is visually checked against requirements and standards.

Dynamic Analysis: The process of evaluating a program based on execution of that program. Dynamic analysis approaches rely on executing a piece of software with selected test data.

Dynamic Testing: Verification or validation performed which executes the system’s code.

Error: 1) A discrepancy between a computed, observed, or measured value or condition and the true, specified, or theoretically correct value or condition; and
2) a mental mistake made by a programmer that may result in a program fault.

Error-based Testing: Testing where information about programming style, error-prone language constructs, and other programming knowledge is applied to select test data capable of detecting faults, either a specified class of faults or all possible faults.

Evaluation: The process of examining a system or system component to determine the extent to which specified properties are present.

Execution: The process of a computer carrying out an instruction or instructions of a computer.

Exhaustive Testing: Executing the program with all possible combinations of values for program variables.

Failure: The inability of a system or system component to perform a required function within specified limits. A failure may be produced when a fault is encountered.

Failure-directed Testing: Testing based on the knowledge of the types of errors made in the past that are likely for the system under test.

Fault: A manifestation of an error in software. A fault, if encountered, may cause a failure.

Fault Tree Analysis: A form of safety analysis that assesses hardware safety to provide failure statistics and sensitivity analyses that indicate the possible effect of critical failures.

Fault-based Testing: Testing that employs a test data selection strategy designed to generate test data capable of demonstrating the absence of a set of pre-specified faults, typically, frequently occurring faults.

Flowchart: A diagram showing the sequential steps of a process or of a workflow around a product or service.

Formal Review: A technical review conducted with the end user, including the types of reviews called for in the standards.

Function Points: A consistent measure of software size based on user requirements. Data components include inputs, outputs, etc. Environment characteristics include data communications, performance, reusability, operational ease, etc. Weight scale: 0 = not present; 1 = minor influence, 5 = strong influence.

Functional Testing: Application of test data derived from the specified functional requirements without regard to the final program structure. Also known as black-box testing.

Heuristics Testing: Another term for failure-directed testing.

Histogram: A graphical description of individual measured values in a data set that is organized according to the frequency or relative frequency of occurrence. A histogram illustrates the shape of the distribution of individual values in a data set along with information regarding the average and variation.

Hybrid Testing: A combination of top-down testing combined with bottom-up testing of prioritized or available components.

Incremental Analysis: Incremental analysis occurs when (partial) analysis may be performed on an incomplete product to allow early feedback on the development of that product.

Infeasible Path: Program statement sequence that can never be executed.

Inputs: Products, services, or information needed from suppliers to make a process work.

Inspection: 1) A formal evaluation technique in which software requirements, design, or code are examined in detail by a person or group other than the author to detect faults, violations of development standards, and other problems.
2) A quality improvement process for written material that consists of two dominant components: product (document) improvement and process improvement (document production and inspection).

Instrument: To install or insert devices or instructions into hardware or software to monitor the operation of a system or component.

Integration: The process of combining software components or hardware components, or both, into an overall system.

Integration Testing: An orderly progression of testing in which software components or hardware components, or both, are combined and tested until the entire system has been integrated.

Interface: A shared boundary. An interface might be a hardware component to link two devices, or it might be a portion of storage or registers accessed by two or more computer programs.

Interface Analysis: Checks the interfaces between program elements for consistency and adherence to predefined rules or axioms.

Intrusive Testing: Testing that collects timing and processing information during program execution that may change the behavior of the software from its behavior in a real environment. Usually involves additional code embedded in the software being tested or additional processes running concurrently with software being tested on the same platform.

IV&V: Independent verification and validation is the verification and validation of a software product by an organization that is both technically and managerially separate from the organization responsible for developing the product.

Life Cycle: The period that starts when a software product is conceived and ends when the product is no longer available for use. The software life cycle typically includes a requirements phase, design phase, implementation (code) phase, test phase, installation and checkout phase, operation and maintenance phase, and a retirement phase.

Manual Testing: That part of software testing that requires operator input, analysis, or evaluation.

Mean: A value derived by adding several qualities and dividing the sum by the number of these quantities.

Measurement: 1) The act or process of measuring. A figure, extent, or amount obtained by measuring.

Metric: A measure of the extent or degree to which a product possesses and exhibits a certain quality, property, or attribute.

Mutation Testing: A method to determine test set thoroughness by measuring the extent to which a test set can discriminate the program from slight variants of the program.

Non-intrusive Testing: Testing that is transparent to the software under test; i.e., testing that does not change the timing or processing characteristics of the software under test from its behavior in a real environment. Usually involves additional hardware that collects timing or processing information and processes that information on another platform.

Operational Requirements: Qualitative and quantitative parameters that specify the desired operational capabilities of a system and serve as a basis for deter-mining the operational effectiveness and suitability of a system prior to deployment.

Operational Testing: Testing performed by the end user on software in its normal operating environment.

Outputs: Products, services, or information supplied to meet end user needs.

Path Analysis: Program analysis performed to identify all possible paths through a program, to detect incomplete paths, or to discover portions of the program that are not on any path.

Path Coverage Testing: A test method satisfying coverage criteria that each logical path through the program is tested. Paths through the program often are grouped into a finite set of classes; one path from each class is tested.

Peer Reviews: A methodical examination of software work products by the producer’s peers to identify defects and areas where changes are needed.

Policy: Managerial desires and intents concerning either process (intended objectives) or products (desired attributes).

Problem: Any deviation from defined standards. Same as defect.

Procedure: The step-by-step method followed to ensure that standards are met.

Process: The work effort that produces a product. This includes efforts of people and equipment guided by policies, standards, and procedures.

Process Improvement: To change a process to make the process produce a given product faster, more economically, or of higher quality. Such changes may require the product to be changed. The defect rate must be maintained or reduced.

Product: The output of a process; the work product. There are three useful classes of products: manufactured products (standard and custom), administrative/ information products (invoices, letters, etc.), and service products (physical, intellectual, physiological, and psychological). Products are defined by a statement of requirements; they are produced by one or more people working in a process.

Product Improvement: To change the statement of requirements that defines a product to make the product more satisfying and attractive to the end user (more competitive). Such changes may add to or delete from the list of attributes and/or the list of functions defining a product. Such changes frequently require the process to be changed. NOTE: This process could result in a totally new product.

Productivity: The ratio of the output of a process to the input, usually measured in the same units. It is frequently useful to compare the value added to a product by a process to the value of the input resources required (using fair market values for both input and output).

Proof Checker: A program that checks formal proofs of program properties for logical correctness.

Prototyping: Evaluating requirements or designs at the conceptualization phase, the requirements analysis phase, or design phase by quickly building scaled-down components of the intended system to obtain rapid feedback of analysis and design decisions.

Qualification Testing: Formal testing, usually conducted by the developer for the end user, to demonstrate that the software meets its specified requirements.

Quality: A product is a quality product if it is defect free. To the producer a product is a quality product if it meets or conforms to the statement of requirements that defines the product. This statement is usually shortened to “quality means meets requirements. NOTE: Operationally, the work quality refers to products.

Quality Assurance (QA): The set of support activities (including facilitation, training, measurement, and analysis) needed to provide adequate confidence that processes are established and continuously improved in order to produce products that meet specifications and are fit for use.

Quality Control (QC): The process by which product quality is compared with applicable standards; and the action taken when nonconformance is detected. Its focus is defect detection and removal. This is a line function, that is, the performance of these tasks is the responsibility of the people working within the process.

Quality Improvement: To change a production process so that the rate at which defective products (defects) are produced is reduced. Some process changes may require the product to be changed.

Random Testing: An essentially black-box testing approach in which a program is tested by randomly choosing a subset of all possible input values. The distribution may be arbitrary or may attempt to accurately reflect the distribution of inputs in the application environment.

Regression Testing: Selective retesting to detect faults introduced during modification of a system or system component, to verify that modifications have not caused unintended adverse effects, or to verify that a modified system or system component still meets its specified requirements.

Reliability: The probability of failure-free operation for a specified period.

Requirement: A formal statement of: 1) an attribute to be possessed by the product or a function to be performed by the product; the performance standard for the attribute or function; or 3) the measuring process to be used in verifying that the standard has been met.

Review: A way to use the diversity and power of a group of people to point out needed improvements in a product or confirm those parts of a product in which improvement is either not desired or not needed. A review is a general work product evaluation technique that includes desk checking, walkthroughs, technical reviews, peer reviews, formal reviews, and inspections.

Run Chart: A graph of data points in chronological order used to illustrate trends or cycles of the characteristic being measured for the purpose of suggesting an assignable cause rather than random variation.

Scatter Plot (correlation diagram): A graph designed to show whether there is a relationship between two changing factors.

Semantics: 1) The relationship of characters or a group of characters to their meanings, independent of the manner of their interpretation and use.
2) The relationships between symbols and their meanings.

Software Characteristic: An inherent, possibly accidental, trait, quality, or property of software (for example, functionality, performance, attributes, design constraints, number of states, lines of branches).

Software Feature: A software characteristic specified or implied by requirements documentation (for example, functionality, performance, attributes, or design constraints).

Software Tool: A computer program used to help develop, test, analyze, or maintain another computer program or its documentation; e.g., automated design tools, compilers, test tools, and maintenance tools.

Standards: The measure used to evaluate products and identify nonconformance. The basis upon which adherence to policies is measured.

Standardize: Procedures are implemented to ensure that the output of a process is maintained at a desired level.

Statement Coverage Testing: A test method satisfying coverage criteria that requires each statement be executed at least once.

Statement of Requirements: The exhaustive list of requirements that define a product. NOTE: The statement of requirements should document requirements proposed and rejected (including the reason for the rejection) during the requirements determination process.

Static Testing: Verification performed without executing the system’s code. Also called static analysis.

Statistical Process Control: The use of statistical techniques and tools to measure an ongoing process for change or stability.

Structural Coverage: This requires that each pair of module invocations be executed at least once.

Structural Testing: A testing method where the test data is derived solely from the program structure.

Stub: A software component that usually minimally simulates the actions of called components that have not yet been integrated during top-down testing.

Supplier: An individual or organization that supplies inputs needed to generate a product, service, or information to an end user.

Syntax: 1) The relationship among characters or groups of characters independent of their meanings or the manner of their interpretation and use;
2) the structure of expressions in a language; and
3) the rules governing the structure of the language.

System: A collection of people, machines, and methods organized to accomplish a set of specified functions.

System Simulation: Another name for prototyping.

System Testing: The process of testing an integrated hardware and software system to verify that the system meets its specified requirements.

Technical Review: A review that refers to content of the technical material being reviewed.

Test Bed: 1) An environment that contains the integral hardware, instrumentation, simulators, software tools, and other support elements needed to conduct a test of a logically or physically separate component.
2) A suite of test programs used in conducting the test of a component or system.

Test Case: The definition of test case differs from company to company, engineer to engineer, and even project to project. A test case usually includes an identified set of information about observable states, conditions, events, and data, including inputs and expected outputs.

Test Development: The development of anything required to conduct testing. This may include test requirements (objectives), strategies, processes, plans, software, procedures, cases, documentation, etc.

Test Executive: Another term for test harness.

Test Harness: A software tool that enables the testing of software components that links test capabilities to perform specific tests, accept program inputs, simulate missing components, compare actual outputs with expected outputs to determine correctness, and report discrepancies.

Test Objective: An identified set of software features to be measured under specified conditions by comparing actual behavior with the required behavior described in the software documentation.

Test Plan: A formal or informal plan to be followed to assure the controlled testing of the product under test.

Test Procedure: The formal or informal procedure that will be followed to execute a test. This is usually a written document that allows others to execute the test with a minimum of training.

Testing: Any activity aimed at evaluating an attribute or capability of a program or system to determine that it meets its required results. The process of exercising or evaluating a system or system component by manual or automated means to verify that it satisfies specified requirements or to identify differences between expected and actual results.

Top-down Testing: An integration testing technique that tests the high-level components first using stubs for lower-level called components that have not yet been integrated and that stimulate the required actions of those components.

Unit Testing: The testing done to show whether a unit (the smallest piece of software that can be independently compiled or assembled, loaded, and tested) satisfies its functional specification or its implemented structure matches the intended design structure.

User: The end user that actually uses the product received.

V- Diagram (model): a diagram that visualizes the order of testing activities and their corresponding phases of development

Validation: The process of evaluating software to determine compliance with specified requirements.

Verification: The process of evaluating the products of a given software development activity to determine correctness and consistency with respect to the products and standards provided as input to that activity.

Walkthrough: Usually, a step-by-step simulation of the execution of a procedure, as when walking through code, line by line, with an imagined set of inputs. The term has been extended to the review of material that is not procedural, such as data descriptions, reference manuals, specifications, etc.

White-box Testing: Testing approaches that examine the program structure and derive test data from the program logic. This is also known as clear box testing, glass-box or open-box testing. White box testing determines if program-code structure and logic is faulty. The test is accurate only if the tester knows what the program is supposed to do. He or she can then see if the program diverges from its intended goal. White box testing does not account for errors caused by omission, and all visible code must also be readable.