This document discusses software testing tools and proposes a taxonomy for classifying them. It begins by addressing common myths and facts about software testing and developers. It then provides definitions of software testing and examples of over 20 specific software testing tools. The document proposes that a taxonomy is needed to classify tools to help testers choose the right ones. It reviews existing tool taxonomies and their shortcomings before concluding and thanking the reader.

1. Software Testing Tools and Its
Taxonomy
Dr. Himanshu Hora
SRMS College of Engineering & Technology
Bareilly (INDIA)

2. Myths Vs Facts
Myths :
–
–
Developers require more skills in comparative
to QA.
Development needs more effort then testing.
Facts:
–
–
Tester needs to think one step ahead then
developers to breaks their code.
Testing is more creative than development
because you need to be creative to become
destructive :

3. Software Testing
“Software Testing is a process of evaluating a system
by manual or automatic means and verify that it
satisfies specified requirements or
identify differences between expected
and actual results”

4. Software Testing Tools
• Boundary value analysis: A method of dividing
application system into segments so that testing can
occur within the boundaries of those segments.
• Cause-effect graphic: Attempts to show the effect of
each test event processed.
• Checklist: A series of probing questions designed to
review a predetermined area or function.

5. Cont…
• Code Comparison: Identifies differences between
two versions of the same program.
• Confirmation: Verifies the correctness of many
aspects of the system by contacting third parties,
such as users, or examining a document to verify that
it exists.
• Data Dictionary: The documentation tool for
recording data elements and the attributes of the
data elements that , under some implementations,
can produce test data to validate the system’s data
edits.

6. Cont…
• Database: A repository of data collected for testing
or about testing that can be summarized, resequenced, and analyzed for test purposes.
• Desk Checking: Reviews by originator of the
requirements, design, or program as a check on the
work performed by that individual.
• Disaster Test: a procedure that predetermines a
disaster as a basis for testing the recover process.

7. Cont…
• Fact finding: information needed to conduct a test or
to ensure the correctness of a document information
achieved through a investigative process requiring
obtaining information.
• Flow chart: graphically represents the system in
order to evaluate the completeness of the
requirement, design, or program specifications.

8. Cont…
• Inspections: A highly structured step by step reviews
of the deliverables produced by each phase of the
system of the system development life cycle in order
to identify the potential defects.
• Instrumentation: The use of monitor or counters to
determine the frequency with which predetermine
events occur.

9. Cont…
• Integrated test facility: a concept that permits the
introduction of the test data into a production
environment so that application can be tested at the
same time they are running in production.
• Risk matrix: test adequacy of controls through the
identification of risk and the controls implemented
each part of the application system to reduce those
risk to a level acceptable.

10. Cont…
• Test data: System transactions that are created for
the purpose of testing the application system.
• Test script: A sequential series of actions that a user
of automated system would enter to validate the
correctness of software processing.

11. Cont…
• Tracing: A representation of the paths followed by
computer programs as they process data or the
paths followed in a data base to locate one more
pieces of data.
• Use cases: Test transactions that focus on how users
will use the software in an operational environment.

12. Cont…
• Walk through: A process that ask the programmer to
explain the application system to a test team
typically by using a simulation of the execution of
application system.

13. Test Tools Taxonomy
• Why Test Tools Taxonomy?
In order to make right choices among tools, you must
be able to classify them. Otherwise, any choice
would be at best haphazard. Without functioning
classification, you would not be able to understand
new tools fast, nor come up with ideas of using, or
creating, new tools.

14. Existing Taxonomies
Software testing lacks standards, and software test
automation lacks them almost totally:
• The section on testing tools in software testing
chapter of Wikipedia is very confusing – to say the
least.
• ISO/IEC 29119 software testing standard is under
development and far from complete.

15. Cont…
• Software process standards such as TMMI or TPI
state their tool taxonomy only indirectly – by stating
vaguely what types of test tools are required for
various maturity levels.
• Maturity Model for Automated Software Testing
(MMAST) sounds promising, but is far from
satisfactory, and almost totally unknown in software
industry.

16. References
• victo.eu/wiedza/English/test_tools_taxonomy.pdf
• www.kaner.com/pdfs/BugTaxonomies.pdf
• Effective Methods for Software Testing (Third Edition)
By William E. Perry

17. THANK YOU
Dr. Himanshu Hora
SRMS College of Engineering & Technology
Bareilly (INDIA)