QA Vocabulary or Vocabulary for Testers

When you start working in the IT field, you often encounter a situation where certain words and terms are not understood. To facilitate your “entry” into IT, to make it more understandable and comfortable, the QAContest training center has prepared a basic list of terms that are most often used by testers.

General Terms

Automated testing is the process of testing software using special programs.

Alpha testing is an imitation of real work with the system by developers, or the real work of potential users at an early stage of product development.

Boundary Value Analysis is a technique for checking the behavior of a product at limit values ​​(fields, records, files, etc.).

Outsourcing – full or partial transfer of tasks, processes to be performed by third parties – legal entities or individuals.

Bug – defect; discrepancy between the actual result of the program execution and the expected result.

A bug report is a technical document that contains a complete description of a bug, including information about the bug itself (a brief description, severity, priority) and the conditions for the occurrence of this bug.

Bug tracker – bug tracking system; a computer program that helps a team of developers and testers track and control bugs and user requests, as well as monitor bug fixes and requests.

Boundary values ​– limit values.

Backend – the software part that users of the site do not see is associated with writing server scripts.

Backlog – a document in which a list of requirements for functionality that must be implemented is compiled by level of importance.

Beta testing is the intensive use of an almost finished version of a product in order to identify and fix as many defects as possible before the final release to users.

Build is the combination of individual program modules into one working system.

Validation is the process of evaluating the final product, it is necessary to check whether the software meets the expectations and requirements of the client. It is a dynamic mechanism for checking and testing the actual product.

Verification is the static practice of checking documents, design, architecture, code, and the like.

Guideline – instruction. In the IT field, a guide from one developer to another for the correct interpretation of a particular job.

Debugging is the process of finding and fixing bugs.

Developer – a specialist engaged in software development.

Deployment is the process of deploying a software product in readiness for use. Deploy – transferring the program to the next environment, for example, to a test system or to another server.

Desktop – a personal computer.

Defect report – error report.

Jira (JIRA) is a bug tracking system for communicating with users and managing projects.

A domain is a set of characters that define a site on the search network and identify it to users.

Dropdown – a drop-down list.

Smoke test – checking the performance of the functions of the product after building a new or corrected current code.

Equivalent partitioning is a technique in which the functionality is divided into groups of values ​​that are equivalent in terms of their impact on the system.

The software life cycle is a conditional scheme that includes separate stages, which are stages in the development of the software creation process.

Quality assurance (QA) – a set of activities covering all technological stages of development, release and use of software;

Failure – discrepancy between the actual result of the system or component to the result that was expected.

Installation Testing is the process of testing the installation stage.

Introduction – acquaintance with the product, team, etc.; representation of someone or something.

Iterative model – involves splitting the project into parts (stages, iterations) and passing through the stages of the life cycle on each of them. Each stage is complete in itself, the set of stages forms the final result.

The waterfall model is a sequential method of software development, so named because of the waterfall-like diagram.

Clickable – the ability to click the mouse cursor and go to a particular page.

Coding is the process of writing code.

Configuration Testing – checking the operation of the software under various system configurations.

Cache is temporary storage for frequently accessed files.

Log – a file with service and system information about events in the system.

Monkey job – simple, repetitive or routine work that does not require large expenditures.

Traceability matrix – a two-dimensional table where the correspondence between functional requirements and prepared test cases is determined.

Load testing – determination of the health, stability, resource consumption and other quality attributes of an application under various use cases and loads.

Non-functional testing – testing of properties that do not correspond to the functionality of the system.

Overclocking – increasing the frequency of a computer component in order to increase its speed.

Operational testing (Release Testing) – the process of checking the system to meet all user needs and business requirements.

An error is an action that results in an incorrect result.

Error Guessing is the ability of a tester to predict under what conditions the system may generate an error due to its knowledge and understanding of the system.

Retesting is testing that is carried out to make sure that previously found errors are resolved.

Post-release (Post-release to manufacturing) – product edition with several differences from RTM; is the very first stage in the development of a new product.

Pre-alpha (Pre-alpha) – the very first stage of development – from the very beginning to the alpha stage.

Acceptance testing is testing aimed at checking the product from the point of view of the end user.

Cause/Effect – The introduction of certain combinations to obtain a certain result.

Priority of bugs (Priority) – an attribute indicating the speed of fixing the bug, the order in which the task is performed.

• Trivial is a cosmetic, subtle issue.
• Minor is an obvious, minor issue.
• Major is a big problem.
• Critical – a problem that disrupts the operation of key software functions.
• Blocker is a problem that disrupts the functioning of the software.

Production – the release of the finished product.

Regression testing – checking for errors after performing certain actions or making changes to the system.

Release (Release to manufacturing) is the release of a product.

Release Candidate – A preliminary release that has the potential to become final unless significant violations are identified.

Repository is a special server that stores the software available for download.

Manual testing is the process of manually checking software for bugs.

Sanity testing is the testing of a specific function in order to check whether it works according to the stated requirements.

Server is a computer, device or program designed to manage network resources.

Severity – the degree to which a defect affects system performance.

Scrum is a project management approach for agile software development.

Script is a program that contains a sequence of actions designed to automatically perform a specific task.

Screenshot is a copy of a screen image stored and distributed in a graphic format.

A specification is a detailed description of how the software should work.

Spiral model – all stages of the life cycle in the spiral model go in turns, each of which involves design, coding, design, testing, and the like.

Comparative testing (Back-To-Back Testing) – analysis of the pros and cons of a product in comparison with its closest competitors.

Software development stages are certain stages that a development team goes through from the start until the product becomes available to a wide audience.

A state transition table is a table of system transitions from one state to another.

Stress Testing – checking the performance of a product during and after working with a much larger load than planned.

A decision table is a handy tool that aims to streamline business requirements for a product.

Test design is one of the testing stages during which possible test cases (cases) are designed.

A test case is a test artifact, the essence of which is to perform a certain number of actions and / or conditions necessary to test a certain functionality of the software system being developed.

Test Plan – a document that specifies the entire scope of testing work, as well as risk assessments with options for their solution.

Testing – the process of checking the compliance of the requirements stated for the product and the functionality actually implemented, occurs by observing its work in artificially created situations and on a limited set of tests selected in a certain way.

Security testing – checking how the system is ready to resist malicious attempts to access data.

Interoperability Testing – functional testing, the purpose of which is to check how an application can interact with one or more elements / systems.

Recovery testing – testing the ability of a product to recover its functions after an unplanned situation.

Accessibility Testing – used to determine the usability of the system and the convenience for people with disabilities.

Build Verification Test is a preliminary check of the developed software product before launching a full-scale testing in all parameters, conducted by the QA team.

Internationalization/localization testing – checking the readiness of the product to use it in different languages, taking into account national and cultural characteristics.

User interface testing (UI Testing) – testing, the main purpose of which is to find out whether a certain element is convenient for use.

Scalability Test – Examining the ability to increase performance metrics as the number of resources available to an application increases.

Compatibility testing – checking the ability of a product to work under specified conditions.

Frontend – the interaction interface between the user and the backend.

Functional Testing is the process of testing to determine the functionality of an application.

Checklist – a document that defines a list of what should be tested.

Agile is a project management method aimed at providing the final result at each stage of work with a possible change in the final result.

QC (Quality Control) – verification of compliance with the requirements stipulated in the regulatory and technical documentation.

Software architecture document – a document describing the architecture of the program, approaches and technologies that will be used to develop it.

UI (User Interface) is a tool that helps to establish user-application interaction.

UX (user experience) is the feeling that a user has when interacting with a product.

V-model – a model, at each stage of which the current process is monitored in order to make sure that it is possible to move to the next level.

XML is a standard for constructing markup languages ​​for hierarchically structured data for exchange between different applications, in particular, via the Internet.

Types of Testing

Mobile Testing – Testing mobile applications.

Console testing – testing applications for consoles.

Web testing – testing browser applications.

Types of Run Code Testing

Static testing is a type of testing that assumes that the program code will not be executed during testing.

Dynamic testing is a type of testing that involves running program code.

Type os Code Access Testing

Black box – the tester does not know how the system under test works.

White box – the tester knows all the details of the system under test.

Gray box – the tester knows only about some features of the system under test.