Comparison Of Australian And International Standards For Software Testing And Test Management Tools

The name of the Australian standard is AS/NZS ISO/IEC 25062: 2006.

Standards Australia along with Standards Council of New Zealand holds the copyrights for the standard.

Apart from Standards Australia and Standards Council of New Zealand, there are a few universities also involved viz. Griffith University, Charles Strut University, and Sydney University of Technology.

The definition of the Australian standard has been done to ensure that the software usability is included and is met by all the codes and packages that are created.

Thus, the scope includes the testing processes and activities to carry out usability testing and to publish the results of the same. The aim is to ensure that the software usability is high to attain higher user satisfaction levels. The Australian Standard is intended to be utilized by the following:

• Representatives from the supplier groups and companies having expertise on the system and software usability so that the usability levels can be tested and detected.
• End-users of the software to understand the best practices and features that shall be included for maximisation of the usability of the system.
• Technical resources and staff members of Customer Company to validate the system usability (Iso, 2018).
• Members of the project team to determine the software usability and the areas that they may improve upon.

• Usability: It is the property of the software code or package that determines the usage and ease of usage of the system along with the ability of the system to target the user desires.
• Effectiveness: The accuracy of the software to respond to the request of the user as per the expectations.  
• Efficiency: Optimum utilization of the resources in sync with the software effectiveness and its usability.
• Accessibility: The ease of making use of the software and all of its features without any lags or issues.
• Satisfaction: The level of comfort with the software application and the fulfilment of the expectations from the features included.  
• End-User: The individual that makes use of the system and the features implemented in it.
• User Groups: The target audience of the application grouped on the basis of the parameters as their age groups, interest in the software, and likewise.  

The standard has been defined to standardize the testing processes and activities to carry out usability testing and to publish the results of the same. The aim is to ensure that the software usability is high to attain higher user satisfaction levels. It is used by the software companies and clients to ensure that the usability of the system is high.

There are a number of functional and non-functional requirements associated with the software. The functional aspects are based on the feature set and the business case. The non-functional requirements are the system qualities that shall be included and one of the essential qualities is usability. The Australian Standard is relevant to software testing as it provides the guidelines that may be used for increasing the usability of the software and to have enhanced levels of customer satisfaction as the outcome (Infostore, 2016).

The name of the international standard is ISO/IEC 12119: 1994.

The two international organizations viz. International Organization for Standardizations (ISO) and International Electrotechncial Commission (IEC) have the copyrights for the standard.

There were no universities involved during the definition and setting up of the standard.

Scope & Intent

The standard is defined to be used and applied to the software codes and applications. It includes the software quality as one of the essential software requirements and characteristics and has been developed to test the quality. The activities conducted during the production process are not included in the scope of this standard. The International software testing standard is intended to be utilized by the following:

• Suppliers: The standard is applied during the development of the software specification or during the audits and reviews.
• Regulatory authorities to provide the certifications after assessing the software and system quality.
• Testing organizations to certify a specific software or product (Bcc, 2015).
• Accreditation groups  
• Senior management, leadership, and auditors to validate and verify the quality of the software
• End-users to be assured of the quality of the end-product being delivered to them.

Key Terms & Understanding 

• Function: Code that is developed in a particular programming language to implement a requirement for a system.  
• Requirements Documentation: Formal document prepared by the project client illustrating the requirements of the system that may be divided in the various categories as functional requirements, performance requirements, quality requirements, etc.  
• Product Description: The business case developed for the members of the project team describing the details of the product and its components.  
• User Documentation: User manual, assistance & support guides, and frequently asked questions for guiding and assisting the end-users of the software.
• Test Case: It is a combination of conditions and variables to be verified in the software application or code and is associated with a unique id, description, actual & expected behaviour along with the set of steps to be used.  
• Maintenance: The processes that are carried out to implement the additional features and fixes along with the updates in software code or application.

Application of the Standard 

The standard is defined to be used and applied to the software codes and applications. It includes the software quality as one of the essential software requirements and characteristics and has been developed to test the quality. The two international organizations viz. International Organization for Standardizations (ISO) and International Electrotechncial Commission (IEC) have defined this standard to enhance the software quality by utilizing it in the process of software testing.

Relevance to Software Testing

The international standard is extremely relevant to the field of software testing as it assists the testers to ensure that the quality of the software is as per the expectations and is always improved upon. It provides the guidelines that may be used for increasing the quality of the software and to have enhanced levels of customer satisfaction as the outcome.

The Australian standard and the international standard discussed and described above have certain similarities and differences.

The similarities between the two standards are in the terms of their purpose and significance. The standards are the software testing standards that have been created with a purpose of enhancing the non-functional qualities of the software applications and codes. The primary aim behind both these standards is to enhance the level of user experience and engagement with the software and to make sure their expectations are met.

There are also differences between the two standards. The primary difference is in the area of application. The Australian standard is specific to the usability area of the software codes and applications while the international standard is specific to the quality area of the software codes and applications. ISO/IEC 12119: 1994 is an international standard and therefore, it comes with increased reliability and global standardization. The application area of the two standards is based on the scope and intent of the two which also varies from each other.

TestRail is a test management tool that is designed on the basis of the modern concepts and technologies. It has been developed for the resources in the QA teams along with the development resources. The tool is cloud-based and comes with abundant feature sets as listed below.  

• The tool allows streamlining and management of the testing activities on an integrated platform.
• The cloud-based tool provides the users to access it on their dedicated servers to enhance the security and privacy of the test processes and information.
• Productivity and performance of the tool is excellent owing to it rich interface.
• It supports modern and adaptive methodologies and frameworks, such as agile methods (TestRail, 2018).
• It supports the automated test cases along with the manual testing.
• Rich graphics are used to display the results of the test processes.
• Automatic report extraction is one of the features of the tool.

The tool provides the ability to the individual testing resource along with entire testing team to use it in a flexible manner. The multiple user access is provided for the tool without any performance lags. There is rich user interface along with the rich graphics that are supported on the tool. The streamlining of the testing activities can be achieved using the tool including the automation and manual test processes.  

Test Collab is one of the test management tools that is being used several business organizations and comes with an abundant features as listed below.

• The tool provides the users with the ability to initiate the test processes from the beginning of the project by integrating the test cases with planning and development activities.  
• Encryption of the data is provided in the tool to make sure that the test information is always kept protected.
• The tool can be accessed on a variety of the operating systems and is therefore independent of the platform being used. The virtual machines can also be synced with the tool.
• Multi-user access is provided on the tool along with excellent technical compatibility.
• The reusable set of steps usually involved in the manual test cases can be stored in the form of a template and the need to write all of the steps over and over again gets eliminated.
• The tool allows the option to sync with the requirements specification document.
• There is an option to keep a track of all the testing activities by recording the time spent by each tester (Testcollab, 2018).
• Testing milestones and deliverables can be set up on the tool.
• Collaboration and integration is one of the key activities allowed on the tool so that all of the processes can be synced with each other.  

Both the test management tools that have been discussed along with their feature sets above have a few similarities and certain differences.

The primary purpose behind the development of these tools is to give shape to the testing activities and processes. These are developed to manage the test processes and have following common features.  

• The tools provide the users with the ability to initiate the test processes from the beginning of the project by integrating the test cases with planning and development activities.  
• Both the tools support the automated test cases along with the manual testing.
• The tools provide an option to keep a track of all the testing activities by recording the time spent by each tester.
• The tools can be accessed on a variety of the operating systems and are therefore independent of the platform being used.
• Multi-user access is provided on the tools along with the excellent technical compatibility.

There are also a few differences that have been observed in these two test management tools. The primary point of difference is in the price of the two tools models along with the purchase model that is involved.

• TestRail is the test management tool that has two options for pricing and purchase of the tool. The first is a cloud-based version of the tool that comes with a monthly charge of $30 to be paid by the user to get the access to the tool and its features. The second is the server version of the tool that has a yearly charge of $290. The second version comes with a yearly license for five users.
• Test Collab is a test management tool that has three different models. These models come with a monthly charge of $0, $10, and $25. For the small scale firms and the start-up units, the variant with a monthly charge of $25 shall be used. The larger enterprises with more than 50 users to access the tool shall implement the model with a monthly charge of $25. There is a trial version of the tool that can also be used to understand the features provided by the tool.

References

Bcc. (2015). Information technology – Software packages – Quality requirements and testing. Retrieved from https://bcc.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/bcc.portal.gov.bd/page/adeaf3e5_cc55_4222_8767_f26bcaec3f70/ISO_IEC_12119.PDF

Infostore. (2016). Software engineering—Software product Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE)—Common Industry Format (CIF) for usability test reports. Retrieved from https://infostore.saiglobal.com/preview/as/as20000/25000/25062-2006_r2016.pdf?sku=394870

Iso. (2018). AS/NZ ISO/IEC 25062:2006. Retrieved from https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:25062:ed-1:v2:en

Testcollab. (2018). Free Test Management Software & Test Case Management Tool. Retrieved from https://testcollab.com/

TestRail. (2018). TestRail Pricing & Licensing. Retrieved from https://www.gurock.com/testrail/pricing