Editing Software testing (section)

===== Visual testing =====

The aim of visual testing is to provide developers with the ability to examine what was happening at the point of software failure by presenting the data in such a way that the developer can easily find the information he or she requires, and the information is expressed clearly.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Lönnberg |first=Jan |title=Visual testing of software |date=October 7, 2003 |degree=MSc |publisher=Helsinki University of Technology |url=https://www.cs.hut.fi/~jlonnber/VisualTesting.pdf |access-date=January 13, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Chima |first=Raspal |title=Visual testing |url=http://www.testmagazine.co.uk/2011/04/visual-testing |magazine=TEST Magazine |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120724162657/http://www.testmagazine.co.uk/2011/04/visual-testing/ |archive-date=July 24, 2012 |access-date=January 13, 2012}}</ref>

At the core of visual testing is the idea that showing someone a problem (or a test failure), rather than just describing it, greatly increases clarity and understanding. Visual testing, therefore, requires the recording of the entire test process – capturing everything that occurs on the test system in video format. Output videos are supplemented by real-time tester input via picture-in-a-picture webcam and audio commentary from microphones.

Visual testing provides a number of advantages. The quality of communication is increased drastically because testers can show the problem (and the events leading up to it) to the developer as opposed to just describing it, and the need to replicate test failures will cease to exist in many cases. The developer will have all the evidence he or she requires of a test failure and can instead focus on the cause of the fault and how it should be fixed.

[[Ad hoc testing]] and [[exploratory testing]] are important methodologies for checking software integrity because they require less preparation time to implement, while the important bugs can be found quickly.<ref name="LewisSoftware16">{{Cite book |last=Lewis, W.E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fgaBDd0TfT8C&pg=PA68 |title=Software Testing and Continuous Quality Improvement |publisher=CRC Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-4398-3436-7 |edition=3rd |pages=68–73}}</ref> In ad hoc testing, where testing takes place in an improvised impromptu way, the ability of the tester(s) to base testing off documented methods and then improvise variations of those tests can result in a more rigorous examination of defect fixes.<ref name="LewisSoftware16" /> However, unless strict documentation of the procedures is maintained, one of the limits of ad hoc testing is lack of repeatability.<ref name="LewisSoftware16" />

{{further|Graphical user interface testing}}