Software Testing Life Cycle Part 1

The software testing life cycle is no joke and we cover the first phase of the whole process here.

The Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) refers to the steps or phases of testing of software. It is built upon several key phases such as the requirements and design review, test planning and designing, environment setup and more.

For a case study directly related to the software testing life cycle check out our Family Services of Greater Houston project!

There are other key components to the testing life cycle and we will cover the first of these.

Requirements and Design in the Software Testing Life Cycle

Requirements and design as it relates to the STLC is the first of the many phases necessary in this process. It begins with reviewing requirements and assumptions of the software being built. This is critical in constructing any usable software as some teams will rush this phase of the process and pay heavily in the future of the testing life cycle. The requirements and design phase, just like when dealing with a client project or internal software product, is essential to setting guardrails. Without barriers to the testing process there can be no assurance that the software has removed all edge cases as well.

Key Players in the Software Testing Life Cycle

There are critical players in the software testing life cycle as well from beta testers, quality assurance teams and the developers. Interestingly enough, we come across software vendors who still have their developers doing the QA on their products and projects. Regardless, we will cover these key players in a later post as well.

Software Design in the Software Testing Life Cycle

Another key component to this portion of the software testing life cycle is the review of the software design as it pertains to the product launch and test cases. Proper tests can be extrapolated directly from the software design as test cases. These should be documented appropriately for all future releases to ensure proper functionality through the life cycle of the project.

Deliverables of the Software Testing Life Cycle

The deliverables of this phase of the software testing life cycle are simple. Teams are expected to simple review any bug or UI recommendation reports. Particularly in mobile development there are key standards for iOS that all developers must follow to submit their apps to the Apple App Store. We can assure you that although most iOS freelancers aren’t following a strict software testing life cycle process, they are very keen on following the Apple standards and keep a close watch on UI recommendations from their teams.

Interested in learning more about test driven development? Check out our blog post here!

Thanks for checking out our first of seven posts on the software testing life cycle. Here’s the upcoming curriculum:

• PixelRocket: Software Testing Life Cycle Part 2 – Test Planning
• PixelRocket: Software Testing Life Cycle Part 3 – Test Designing
• PixelRocket: Software Testing Life Cycle Part 4 – Test Environment Setup
• PixelRocket: Software Testing Life Cycle Part 5 – Test Execution
• PixelRocket: Software Testing Life Cycle Part 6 – Test Reporting
• PixelRocket: Software Testing Life Cycle Part 7 – Software Release!