Research Proposal Software Testing In Auckland

Introduction

In the recent past, the world of software engineering has been attracting more attention than it has ever done in history. The reason being that more and more people are getting interested in the field, something that was not there before (Younis & Zamli, 2015). With most companies and institutions relying on various software to accomplish their day-to-day tasks, this field has opened a niche in the market not only for jobs but also for utilizing technology. However, this is has also brought about the need for high quality software in the market. In order to ensure this need is met comes the need for software testing (Birchmore, Davies, Etherington, Tait & Pivac, 2017). It is a process that executes a software, in simpler terms a program, with the aim of finding bugs, which should be corrected before the software is released to the market.

Aim of the research project

This proposal aims to create awareness on the software testing process as it happens around the world, more especially in Auckland. It also aims to understand if software developers, and all stakeholders involved, are aware of the importance of software testing, the different software testing methods available and how to go about it when they reach this step during their software development process.

Justification of the project

The need for software in Auckland has brought about a high demand for experienced software developers. The only problem is that while a number of people have the knowledge, very few are experienced enough to follow the software development process to the end (WORK, 2016). Often, you will find that a certain step is missed and more often than not, it is the testing phase. What most do not realize is that the phase is completely necessary. This is because it ensures that the software developed is of high quality, usable and meets the user's needs. Without this, we would expect unreliable, unusable, inefficient and ineffective machines in the industries and other areas. The consequences that would result from this would be in no doubt dire (Parsons, Susnjak & Lange, 2014). Think of losses in manufacturing industries, paralysis of work in banks and even death if the said machine was in a hospital, e.g. MRI machine. Seeing that this process is indeed important has brought about the need to create awareness on it and thus the reason for this research project.

Research questions

• What is software testing?
• How is software testing carried out in Auckland?
• Why is software testing important?
• What are the existing software testing methods?
• When should software testing be done?

Literature Review

Software testing is a process in the software development life cycle that looks into detecting software failures early so that they may be corrected before the software is put in actual use. It includes the examination as well as execution of the software code to ensure it functions as is required (Myers, 2013). In addition, through testing, the developers are able to determine if it will be acceptable by the targeted audience.

Importance of software testing

The benefits realized from software testing include:

1. It saves companies billions of money. According to reports from the National Institute of Standards and technology (2002), $59.5 billion are lost from failures resulting from software bugs by the US economy.
2. It helps in delivering high quality software to customers.
3. It helps avoid future failures which may result in losses, some which are unrecoverable.
4. With testing, the both the customer and developer work together to bring forth a masterpiece that is both acceptable to the user and easy to use.

Software testing methods

Traditionally, there have only been two software testing methods i.e. white box and black box testing. However, as the software engineering field has been advancing, the testing methods have also improved (Cruz, Silva & Capretz, 2015). There are now more than 10 methods available with each one of them focusing on a particular area. Some of these methods used include;

1. Acceptance testing- it involves testing the software with respect to the intended user. If it is say a banking software, this test looks at the ease of use by a customer. Is he/ she able to navigate with little or no help? At the end, the software is marked as accepted or rejected. Necessary changes are then made if it was rejected.
2. Unit testing- It is the most basic and tests each single module of the software on its own.
3. Integration testing - once the unit testing is completed, all the units are combined and the system tested as a whole.
4. Security testing-this test is done to ensure when the software is implemented, no unauthorized persons can access data or information stored in the software, read or modify it. This is a requirement by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Ideally, software testing is done throughout the software development process i.e. after the first program is coded and ends just before the software is implemented. 

Conclusion

As seen above, the software testing process is essential in any software development process and thus developers need to be aware of this.

Proposed research methodology

In order to undertake this research, the survey research methodology will be used. The survey will focus on the software developers in Auckland and get to understand the much they now about software testing and whether they use it while developing their software (Cruz, Silva & Capretz, 2015). Some of the methods that will be used include in person interviews as well as questionnaires. The idea will be to get to understand Auckland software developers and their view of software testing (Hurley, Cursons, Wang, Budden & Crampin, 2014). A combination of both close-ended questions (select response form a given set) and open-ended questions (free to answer) will be used. After all the data is collected, it will be analyzed and interpreted. A report will be drafted from this data and finding presented to the concerned parties.

Project Plan

References

Birchmore, R., Davies, K., Etherington, P., Tait, R., & Pivac, A. (2017). Overheating in Aucklandhomes: testing and interventions in full-scale and simulated houses. Building Research &   Information, 45(1-2), 157-175.

Cruz, S., da Silva, F. Q., & Capretz, L. F. (2015). Forty years of research on personality in software engineering: A mapping study. Computers in Human Behavior, 46, 94-113.

Hurley, D. G., Cursons, J., Wang, Y. K., Budden, D. M., & Crampin, E. J. (2014). NAIL, a software toolset for inferring, analyzing and visualizing regulatory networks.  Bioinformatics, btu612.

Myers, M. D. (2013). Qualitative research in business and management. Sage.

Parsons, D., Susnjak, T., & Lange, M. (2014). Influences on regression testing strategies in agile   software development environments. Software Quality Journal, 22(4), 717-739.

WORK, P. M. T. (2016). Connecting and Serving the Software Engineering Community. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 42(3), 203.

Younis, M. I., & Zamli, K. Z. (2015). Software engineering framework for developing software   testing products.