Software testing and Quality Assurance (SQA)

Every software product has a target audience. For example, the audience for video game software is completely different from banking software. Therefore, when an organization develops or otherwise invests in a software product, it can assess whether the software product will be acceptable to its end users, its target audience, its purchasers, and other stakeholders, Software testing is the process of attempting to make this assessment.

A primary purpose for testing is to detect software failures so that defects may be uncovered and corrected. The scope of software testing often includes examination of code as well as execution of that code in various environments and conditions as well as examining the aspects of code: does it do what it is supposed to do and do what it needs to do. There are various roles for testing team members. Information derived from software testing may be used to correct the process by which software is developed.

Software testing is used in association with verification and validation:

• Verification: Have we built the software right? (i.e., does it match the specification)
• Validation: Have we built the right software? (i.e., is this what the customer wants)

According to the IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology:

• Verification is the process of evaluating a system or component to determine whether the products of a given development phase satisfy the conditions imposed at the start of that phase
• Validation is the process of evaluating a system or component during or at the end of the development process to determine whether it satisfies specified requirements

Regarding the periods and the different goals in software testing, different roles have been established: manager, test lead, test designer, tester, automation developer, and test administrator.

Software testing may be viewed as an important part of the software quality assurance (SQA) process. In SQA, software process specialists and auditors take a broader view on software and its development. They examine and change the software engineering process itself to reduce the amount of faults that end up in the delivered software: the so-called defect rate.

Software Testing is a task intended to detect defects in software by contrasting a computer program's expected results with its actual results for a given set of inputs. By contrast, QA (Quality Assurance) is the implementation of policies and procedures intended to prevent defects from occurring in the first place.