Goals of Software Testing

The main goal of software testing is to find bugs as early as possible and fix bugs and make sure that the software is bug-free. 

Important Goals of Software Testing:

• Detecting bugs as soon as feasible in any situation.
• Avoiding errors in a project’s and product’s final versions.
• Inspect to see whether the customer requirements criterion has been satisfied.
• Last but not least, the primary purpose of testing is to gauge the project and product level of quality.

The goals of software testing may be classified into three major categories as follows:

1. Immediate Goals
2. Long-term Goals
3. Post-Implementation Goals

1. Immediate Goals: These objectives are the direct outcomes of testing. These objectives may be set at any time during the SDLC process. Some of these are covered in detail below:

• Bug Discovery: This is the immediate goal of software testing to find errors at any stage of software development. The number of bugs is discovered in the early stage of testing. The primary purpose of software testing is to detect flaws at any step of the development process. The higher the number of issues detected at an early stage, the higher the software testing success rate.
  
• Bug Prevention: This is the immediate action of bug discovery, that occurs as a result of bug discovery. Everyone in the software development team learns how to code from the behavior and analysis of issues detected, ensuring that bugs are not duplicated in subsequent phases or future projects.

2. Long-Term Goals: These objectives have an impact on product quality in the long run after one cycle of the SDLC is completed. Some of these are covered in detail below:

• Quality: This goal enhances the quality of the software product. Because software is also a product, the user’s priority is its quality. Superior quality is ensured by thorough testing. Correctness, integrity, efficiency, and reliability are all aspects that influence quality. To attain quality, you must achieve all of the above-mentioned quality characteristics.
• Customer Satisfaction: This goal verifies the customer’s satisfaction with a developed software product. The primary purpose of software testing, from the user’s standpoint, is customer satisfaction. Testing should be extensive and thorough if we want the client and customer to be happy with the software product.
• Reliability: It is a matter of confidence that the software will not fail. In short, reliability means gaining the confidence of the customers by providing them with a quality product.
• Risk Management: Risk is the probability of occurrence of uncertain events in the organization and the potential loss that could result in negative consequences. Risk management must be done to reduce the failure of the product and to manage risk in different situations.

3. Post-Implemented Goals: After the product is released, these objectives become critical. Some of these are covered in detail below:

• Reduce Maintenance Cost: Post-released errors are costlier to fix and difficult to identify. Because effective software does not wear out, the maintenance cost of any software product is not the same as the physical cost. The failure of a software product due to faults is the only expense of maintenance. Because they are difficult to discover, post-release mistakes always cost more to rectify. As a result, if testing is done thoroughly and effectively, the risk of failure is lowered, and maintenance costs are reduced as a result.
• Improved Software Testing Process: These goals improve the testing process for future use or software projects. These goals are known as post-implementation goals. A project’s testing procedure may not be completely successful, and there may be room for improvement. As a result, the bug history and post-implementation results can be evaluated to identify stumbling blocks in the current testing process that can be avoided in future projects.

Conclusion: As a way to wrap up, I’d want to emphasize that a tester should be more than simply a tester because the success of a project depends on the tester’s knowledge, insight, communication, confidence, and efforts. Testers should thus comprehend the wider picture in terms of a product’s quality rather than concentrating just on discovering flaws.