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Quality Assurance Process for Web Applications

Preprint · March 2018

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22594.68802

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 Quality Assurance Process for Web Applications
Muhammad Umair
ms150200096@vu.edu.pk
Virtual University of Pakistan
ABSTRACT- The purpose of this paper is to introduce the described testing techniques for web applications in their
quality assurance process for developing web applications. paper. For web applications, they described techniques
Web Applications have grown tremendously during the such as page testing, hyperlink testing, Definition-use
past decade or so. Development of web applications seems testing, All-uses testing, and All-paths testing. Qasim [2],
similar to traditional software development, however, in his study, has tested an online dictionary for quality
methods and tools for testing web applications usually lack assurance. He gave input wrong words to website and
and as a result, quality of a web application is highly checked if the website can figure out the correct word.
impacted. This paper focuses on quality assurance metrics Saleem et. al [3] have done a literature review of quality
and then discusses the quality assurance process for web assurance procedures for web services. Nikfard et. al [8]
applications. have discussed different testing approaches of web
applications in their study. Di Lucca et. al [9] also
KEYWORDS- Quality Assurance, Quality Metrics, discussed testing approaches for web applications in their
Functionality Testing, Usability Testing, Interface Testing, study. They discussed and proposed a test model for web
Compatibility Testing, Performance Testing, Security application. They discussed test strategy for client pages,
Testing, Performance Measures server pages. Integration test strategy was also on the cards.

I. INTRODUCTION III. WEB APPLICATIONS

Use of computers and internet has grown Before diving into main topic of quality assurance
tremendously in the recent years. This tremendous growth process of web applications, we take a brief look at the
has resulted in increase of a service that we use over the definition of web application. Any application that requires
internet known as WWW. Today, businesses from all fields a web browser for interaction is termed as web application
rely on web applications for their day to day operations. [1]. Web applications may be a simple game as well as a
Therefore, it has become more important that the data that complex application such as Spreadsheet program. One
those businesses have is secure, free of errors and above benefit of a web application is that the client doesn’t need
all, the web application is fully functional and should run to install the software on its end in order to run the
24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. To application. Client only needs a browser to access it.
ensure this, development of web applications need to go
through a process which we know as quality assurance. IV. WHAT IS QUALITY ASSURANCE
Quality assurance techniques must be applied to each and
every web application so that it remains fully functional Before discussing quality assurance techniques for
even during critical hours. This challenge is difficult to development of expert systems, we need to arrive at the
meet in today’ world because unlike software, web definition of quality assurance. According to the model
applications need to change over time in order to meet known as Deming's Triangle (1981), the quality is
customer demands. Not only customer demands are coped measured by following three participants.
with, but changing platforms also need to be taken care of
i. The product itself
during development. Another challenge is that for web
ii. The user, how he or she uses, installs, and
development, developers usually get less time as compared
maintains the product and what he or she
to desktop software.
expected from the product
The purpose of writing this paper is to review iii. Instructions for use, training (both user and
software quality assurance techniques for development of repairer), warranty, services provided along with
Web Applications. We will start with introduction of Web product and availability of its parts.
Applications. After that we will discuss different quality
Some of above mentioned participants don’t fit with the
assurance techniques by use of which we can get quality
web application domain e.g. availability of parts, however
web application.
most of them do.
II. RELATED WORK
Several studies have been done regarding quality
assurance of web application. Filippo Ricca et. al [7] have
 V. QUALITY METRICS OF WEB Performance: In web applications, performance plays an
APPLICATION important role in web applications as the success of the
entire application depends on it.
The quality metrics of web applications are given
below [2] [3]. Security: The security implementations of a web service
determine how successful the application is. This is the
Reliability: A web application is not trusted if it does not
factor, if ignored can cause serious damage to the users and
produce consistent results. It means that the application
business.
must not fail if it is tested time and again. In an ideal
situation, the application must be one hundred percent free Ease of use: This factor affects the web applications in a
from failure. Authors view, test results and operation sense that it helps its clients to give a friendly interaction.
description of the tool form basis for evaluating reliability. Complicated and difficult web applications usually
negatively affect the applications and are not able to win a
Compatibility: It is the measure of the ability of the tool
positive feedback of its users.
to operate on different platforms and Operating systems
etc. For increasing the quality of the software it is necessary SE optimization or page strength: Another quality metric
that the tool is compatible with different platforms and for quality assurance is about the page rank in the popular
CPU architectures. search engines. It is necessary to increase the page rank of
website so that search engines provide link to your website
Efficiency: A system is thought to be efficient if it has
at the top of search results. This will help boost the
ability to use its resources sensibly. It means that if the
business.
system takes too much space on hard disk or takes too
much time to perform an action, it won’t be considered Portability: A good web application is able to perform its
efficient. Performing its task with minimum usage of job on different devices without having effects on its
resources is the key characteristic of an efficient system. performance. The more familiar it is, to different
computing environments, more frequently will it be
Interoperability: It measures the extent to which a system
approached by its users.
is able to communicate with other systems. Coordination
with external systems is very much necessary for
VI. QUALITY ASSURANCE PROCESS OF
successful exchange of information with other systems.
WEB APPLICATIONS
Code maintainability: This parameter measures how Quality assurance of web applications revolves around
much flexible the code of the tool is for correction of the testing of six areas which are Functionality Testing,
defects or changing it. Code maintainability is too much Usability Testing, Interface Testing, Compatibility
important and for doing this it is necessary that the code Testing, Performance Testing, and Security Testing.
has been properly documented. Moreover, consistent
programming language and code standards must be Functionality Testing: To ensure that web application is
adopted to achieve code maintainability. fully functional is all aspects, we need to check the
following.
Effectiveness: It measures the extent to which a tool is
able to measure and report the defects in web application. Table 1 Areas to check while testing functionality
A tool will be considered if it produces the desired results.
Outgoing links
Complexity Measures: By complexity measures we mean Internal links
the degree to which a tool is able to measure the complexity Links that go to another section on same
of a web application. Links pages
Orphan pages
Performance Measures: In performance testing, the test
Checking for broken links in all above
tool evaluates the tasks performed by web application.
mentioned links
Here, the web service is tested on the basis of its
performance and response Check all validations
Check Default Values
Traceability: This parameter depends on tracing the Forms Wrong input
requirement throughout its life i. e from its specification to Links for update form, edit form, delete
its development, deployment and use. It tells everything form, etc. (if any)
about the requirement like its purpose and the factors on Cookies are encrypted or not?
which the requirements depend. Cookies Check application behavior after deleting
cookies
 Check data integrity while editing, Security Testing: To test security of web application, we
deleting, and updating forms need to check specific URLs that should not be accessible
Database to a particular user. For example, we are viewing a
Check if data is being retrieved and
updated correctly document that has ID=123 in its URL at the end. If
document with ID=124 is not accessible to us, then upon
Some tools such as Selenium, Windmill, and twill [4] can changing the URL, appropriate error message should be
be used to check functionality of web application. displayed. CAPTCHA should be used to prevent automatic
traffic.
Usability Testing: Usability refers to how much easy a
Other forms of security testing are Dynamic Application
user feels while using the web application. In order to test
Security Testing (DAST), Static Application Security
usability, navigation, content and any other thing that
Testing (SAST), and Application Penetration Testing [6].
might help the user in some way should be checked. Dark
colors should be avoided as they don’t help the user in any
VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
manner. Images and other non-text things should be
properly placed so that they don’t distract user. “Contact This paper focused on quality assurance techniques for web
us” and “Search” should be placed at a prominent place so application. One such technique is testing and we focused
that user can find them easily. on different testing techniques through which we can
achieve quality web application. As a future work, I would
Interface Testing: Main interfaces in a web application like to do a research regarding how much weightage a
are Web server and application server interface and quality metric has towards developing a quality web
application. Also, I would like to do a research on a
Application server and Database server interface. It should
particular web application, both in terms of quality metrics
be checked if interactions between these interfaces are
and in terms of testing techniques. A research on functional
being executed properly and errors (if any) are being and non-functional testing procedures of a web application
handled correctly. If any error occurs, it should be is also on the list.
displayed to the user.
VIII. REFERENCES:
Compatibility Testing: The most important feature of any
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[4] Gift, N. (2009, March 10). Functional testing for
Performance Testing: Performance testing is done in Web applications. Retrieved from
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normal usage and high usage. For this purpose, we need to [5] Meier, J., Farre, C., Bansode, P., Barber, S., & Rea,
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