What is meant by application testing cycle?

An application testing cycle states what all the activities are to be carried out in the testing. Although different organizations might be following different procedures or test plans for testing the software applications, they all follow the same application testing cycle. They draft their plans based on a common testing cycle. This is basically done to maintain the standards of testing.

APPLICATION TESTING CYCLE
The application testing cycle that we are going to discuss here is a typical test cycle for the organizations that base their application’s development on water fall model.

1. Analysis of Requirements
- Since this is the first phase in the development cycle of an application, the testing should begin from here itself.
- After the identification of the requirements of the application, the testers and developers together determine what all the requirements should be tested.

2. Drawing up the Test Plan
- The whole testing is planned and it includes the test plan, the test strategy and test environment creation.
- Testing is a very complex process.
- Therefore a plan is needed so that there is no messing around.
- The test plans are usually of a high level.

3. Development of Test
- A procedure for carrying out the test is designed.
- Other things like test cases, test scenarios, test scripts and test input data are also made ready.
- This phase also includes the verification of the test cases.
- The automated test cases are scripted.
- This phase is commonly called as the construction and the verification phase.

4. Execution of the Test
- The test cases are executed by the tester as per the test plan and any error or bug found is reported and documented at the same time.

5. Reporting of Test
- A final report on the carried out test is prepared which contains all the observations made and also the testing details.
- This report is submitted to the development team.

6. Analysis of the Test Results
- The results of the test are then analyzed by the whole development team in the presence of the client.
- The client and the development team together decide which issues are to be resolved and which are to be rejected.
- Risks to the application are identified and a risk assessment is prepared.
- Features and functionalities of the application software are validated.

7. Retesting of the Defects
- After resolving all the issues stated by the client, they are once again reviewed by the development if in case they have caused some other bug.
- This is commonly called as resolution testing.

8. Regression Testing/Final Testing
- This is the last but one phase of the application testing cycle and very important.
- This testing is done after making all the major as well as minor fixes in the application in order to ensure that the application is still working properly.
- If any changes are made to the application, at the same time the documentation is also updated.
- The verification of the application is done under the production conditions.
- Metrics of the test efforts are also prepared in this phase.

9. Closure of the Test
- As we know that for every test exit criteria is defined.
- When the test meets these criteria the testing is declared close and all the reports and documentations are archived.
- These archived reports are used for future reference.
- A line of attack is identified and used to prevent such similar bugs and errors in the future applications.
- The whole testing process is evaluated and ways are sort to make it better.
- The test environment is cleaned up and the restoring of all the testing machines and tools to the baseline is also done.