What is System Testing, and Why Do You Need to Perform One? 10 Types with Examples

Imagine your software development team spending countless hours designing a product – writing code, debugging, and refining – only for that product to fail in the final deployment. Seems like a nightmare? Well, it indeed is. 

Technology is quickly evolving, and to stay ahead, your organization should develop robust software solutions that meet and exceed customer expectations. That’s where system testing comes in. It ensures the system as a whole is free of errors and functions smoothly in real-world situations. 

Want to know more? This article is your complete guide to system testing, its benefits, types, and use cases. Let’s dig in.

What is System Testing?

System testing, also known as system-level testing, is a process in which the quality assurance teams check the various components of an application or software and how they interact. It evaluates the software’s overall functionality and performance before it reaches the end users. 

Benefits of System Testing 

The benefits of system testing are many, including:

• High-Quality Product

System testing enables your team to test the software or application one final time before deploying it to the end users. They detect errors and issues beforehand to ensure the system works smoothly in the real world. This makes your product high quality, positioning you as a reliable provider of robust software solutions.

• Cost-Effective

If you don’t run tests on the system, there is a high chance that it will fail in operation or require extensive maintenance. This can take up many of your business resources, disturbing financial stability.

System testing is a sigh of relief in this regard. It enables you to thoroughly verify that each software component works smoothly in an integrated system without any errors. As a result, you save a lot of money that would otherwise be spent on costly fixes and unexpected downtimes.

• Customer Satisfaction

To excel in the market, customer satisfaction should be your priority. This is where system testing helps. It ensures that the final software or application meets customer requirements and functions reliably. It makes customers happy and keeps them returning for more, generating stable revenue. 

However, system testing may also have some downsides. For example, it tests the whole system and not one component, which makes it pretty time-consuming. Moreover, you require extra budget and expertise for complex systems to verify that the whole software is efficient and secure. 

What Do You Verify in System Testing?

System testing covers various aspects, including functionality, non-functional requirements, and security features. Let’s discuss some of them:

#1. Functional correctness

The main purpose of system testing is to ensure that the system is functional and operates smoothly under varying circumstances. For instance, it can check if a software application correctly processes inputs and produces the expected outputs across different scenarios. 

#2. Non-functional requirements

System testing also involves non-functional testing that covers non-functional requirements—aspects of the system that do not relate to specific behaviors but rather to the quality attributes of the software. This ensures the software meets top usability, scalability, and security standards. 

#3. Software interfaces

You should ensure the software solution you’ve developed is compatible with different interfaces, and system testing ensures that. It checks if the software is capable of communicating and interacting with other systems seamlessly, ensuring smooth communication and data flow.

#4. Error handling 

System testing checks if the software can handle any errors that may occur during its operation. For instance, the software shouldn’t hang or crash when an error occurs; instead, it should just alert users and continue working without data loss. 

#5. Performance of the software solution

The system should be able to perform at an exceptional level with maximum efficiency. For example, it should handle large volumes of traffic, respond quickly to user requests, and maintain high performance under stress.

#6. Software reliability

Your application should be reliable and work consistently without failures or interruptions. You can also use automated tools like Jira to check the system for bugs, as 76% of software testers are witnessed to incorporate tools for bug tracking. This leads to enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty as users experience minimal downtime. 

#7. Software usability

You should also verify if the system is user-friendly, ensuring it’s easy to navigate and has a low learning curve so that users can operate it without needing extensive technical expertise.

#8. Security of the software solution

The most important aspect to verify in system testing is the security of the software solution. You must ensure that it has advanced security features that prevent unauthorized access and modifications. This ensures that your customers’ and your company’s data remains safe from breaches. 

When Should You Perform System Testing?

System testing is done after white box testing techniques like system integration testing and unit testing and before the acceptance testing and final deployment phase. It is a type of black box testing that ensures that the software works as intended in its entirety, including all interactions between different modules. It helps catch bugs that may impact user experience and help design reliable and secure software. 

What are System Testing Types?

Some common types of system testing include functional, performance, reliability, and recovery testing.

Here is a detailed explanation of all:

• Functional Testing

Functionality testing is one of the most important things the quality assurance team performs to check if the software meets the set quality standards. It’s a form of black-box testing in which the tester doesn’t know the internal coding of the system but just focuses on input and output. Depending on the results—success or failure—they decide if the system is ready to be released to the end users.

• Performance Testing

Performance testing is all about checking the performance of a system in terms of stability, response, and scalability. The testing team simulates various real-world situations and examines how the software solution works when there’s huge traffic. If there are any lags, they then fix it before delivering the product to the end users. 

• Usability Testing

As the name implies, usability testing involves testing the system interface and user-friendliness. It verifies how easily users can navigate the software and if they face any issues. This data allows them to optimize the software to meet customer requirements.

• Security Testing

Security testing is one of the most important testing types in which the testing team assesses the different security areas of the system. For instance, they conduct rigorous testing to reveal system vulnerabilities that may result in data loss. It also helps you verify that only specific personnel can access the system’s security functions, ensuring a good reputation among customers. 

• Compatibility Testing

The compatibility testing technique evaluates the software or system’s compatibility issues with other systems and hardware setups. Testers also check how the software performs on different browsers to ensure smooth and consistent performance across all platforms. 

• Regression Testing

As technology advances, adding new features to existing systems and software becomes mandatory. Regression testing thoroughly checks and ensures that new enhancements and features don’t negatively impact the software’s functionality and that it continues to operate seamlessly. 

• Recovery Testing

Software systems often experience crashes and lags, but their ability to bounce back from failure matters most. This is where recovery testing comes in. It verifies that the system is capable of recovering from failures quickly. It also involves running tests on the system’s backup functionality to ensure data is not lost during crashes. 

• Localization Testing

Localization testing enables you to verify the functionality of a software or application in specific regions. It checks if the system matches the native UI, language, date, and currency so it better resonates with the local audience. 

• Load Testing

In this type of software testing, your team is responsible for checking how the system performs under normal and high loads. It’s usually implemented before the completion of the software development process and ensures the application can easily withstand high traffic without any issues. 

• Sanity Testing

While many people confuse it with regression testing, it’s a different type of system testing. Sanity testing typically involves checking if the system performs as expected after a minor code change or bug fix. It’s a preliminary step before extensive testing like regression testing.

System Testing Process

System testing is an important phase in the software development lifecycle, and it is carried out through a series of well-defined steps to ensure a detailed evaluation of the software solution. Here are the steps for that:

Step 1: Test Environment Setup

The first step of the system testing process is to create a testing environment that closely mimics the actual production environment. In this step, you configure everything, including hardware and software, to set the tone for accurate results. 

Step 2: Test Case Creation 

Once the testing environment is ready, you should then proceed to develop test cases. These are different scenarios under which the system will be tested and cover all functionalities. For instance, suppose you are testing an e-commerce application; the case test may be to check if the Add to Cart functionality works smoothly. The test case will detail the steps to add an item to the cart, the expected system behavior during this, and the result. 

Step 3: Test Data Generation

Relevant test data is created or selected alongside test cases. It covers real-world situations as well as valid and invalid data to test the system in detail. Continuing with the e-commerce application example, test data can include valid user accounts and payment details. Invalid data you can feed into the system are wrong payment details or non-existent product IDs.

Step 4: Test Case Execution

Now that the test cases and testing data are in place, the final testing starts. Systematic tests are run either manually or using different tools to check if the actual results match the expected results or if there are any discrepancies. For instance, the tester executes the test case for adding an item to the cart. They perform the steps as outlined and observe the system response. If the desired item is added to the cart successfully, the system passes the test.

Step 5: Defect Reporting

If, unfortunately, the system fails to work as expected and there are issues, a defect report is created and sent to the development team. In this, you have to pen down the nature of the defect, at which stage it occurs, and how it impacts the final user experience. Suppose the Add to Cart button of the e-commerce application didn’t work; the defect report will include the Button that is Unresponsive as the main detail. The development team then gets back to fixing all issues, and once everything is sorted, they send the application again to the testing team. 

Step 6: Regression Testing Starts

After issues are fixed, you may conduct a regression testing strategy to ensure that the new changes or fixes have not adversely affected other features. This will test not only the Add to Cart button but also other options like View Cart or Remove from Cart functions to ensure everything is up to the mark. 

Now, the tester will attempt to complete the purchase again. If the system performance is as expected, the defects are considered resolved, and the system is deployed to the end users. 

The automated complete system testing process is quite different from the manual one. It involves selecting automated testing tools like Selenium, Appium, and Cucumber and selecting tests that fit within their scope. 

The test cases are written in programming languages like Java and Python. Overall, whether manually or automatically, system testing gives developers confidence in the functionality of their products and improves the overall customer experience. 

Conclusion 

It doesn’t matter if you own a small or large business; you must perform software testing before releasing your software solution to the end users. However, if you lack the resources and expertise to perform system testing, Hicron Software House has your back. We have expert software developers and testers who carefully analyze bugs and lags in your application.

We then quickly address the issue and retest it so you can rest assured that the final product is definitely going to be a success among end customers. Contact us today to get away from the hassle of extensive testing and just focus on innovation.