What is Functional Testing?

• Functional testing ensures that software operates according to predefined specifications and user expectations. It encompasses various aspects such as responsiveness, navigation, stability, connectivity, and usability. The process often employs a black-box testing approach, focusing on inputs and outputs to validate functionality.

• Definition: Validates software against pre-determined specifications and requirements.

• Importance: Ensures software performs as expected by both developers and end-users.

• Methodology: Often employs a black-box testing approach, focusing on inputs and outputs.

• Issues or “Bugs” are identified and entered by the test team into a bug Database for evaluation and fixing by the development team. A new build is then created, and a regression round follows where the test team will check to ensure that the issues are fixed and that any code changes have not resulted in new issues arising. The cycle continues until the game or application is considered ready to release or launch and all major issues have been fixed or marked as fixed in future updates depending on their severity and likelihood of the end user discovering them.

History of Functional Testing

The history of functional testing traces back to the late 1960s, with IBM’s evaluation of control program functionality by Gerald M. Weinberg and William Elmendorf. Over time, it evolved with the development of tools like Apache JMeter and IBM’s Rational Functional Tester, becoming an integral part of software development methodologies.

• The inception of software testing can be traced back to 1958 when Gerald M. Weinberg assembled the first test team at IBM for the Project Mercury, the inaugural human spaceflight program in the United States. This milestone marked the dawn of software testing as we know it today.
• July 1961, Burton Grad, an IBM employee, introduced decision tables in his paper “Tabular Form in Decision Logic.” Subsequently, in 1967, William Elmendorf proposed a systematic approach to software testing in the IBM white paper “Evaluation of the Functional Testing of Control Programs.”
• Elmendorf further contributed to the field with his 1973 paper, “Cause-Effect Graphs in Functional Testing,” introducing the cause-effect graph technique. Additionally, Tsun S. Chow presented testing techniques for state transition testing in his 1978 paper, “Testing Software Design Modeled by Finite-State Machines.”
• In the early stages, software testing was intertwined with debugging, primarily aimed at validating the functionality of the software. It wasn’t until 1979 that Glenford J. Myers provided a definitive definition of software testing in his book “The Art of Software Testing,” defining it as “the process of running a program with the intention of finding errors.”

Why Do We Do Functional Testing?

As the age-old adage goes, "You only get one chance to make a good first impression," and this still holds true today. Launching your game or app with functionality issues that ruin the experience for players can often lead to bad reviews and just as importantly bad ratings. A recent survey polled users for how likely they would be to download a game that has less than a 4-star rating and as you can see the results were not promising.

Functional testing serves multiple purposes, including validating software performance, enhancing customer satisfaction, and preventing negative impacts on brand reputation caused by software malfunctions or bugs. If your game or application fails to perform against its basic requirements, it will more than likely not succeed in the marketplace.

• Validate that the software performs as expected against predefined criteria.
• Purpose: Validates software performance and enhances customer satisfaction.
• Importance: Prevents negative impacts on brand reputation caused by software malfunctions or bugs.

Types of Functional Testing

There are different types of functional testing, including:

• Exploratory Testing: Allows testers to explore the application freely but with some guidance via a structured time limit or priority-driven nature.
• Scripted Testing: Provides a structured approach to ensure consistent test execution.
• Regression Testing: Ensures that changes do not adversely affect existing functionality.
• Smoke Testing: Allows a cursory test of the product’s main features after minor changes have been introduced.
• Unit Testing: Designed to assess individual components, known as “units,” within a software system.
• Chaos Testing (sometimes referred to as Monkey Testing): Designed to introduce disruptions to a system, simulating real-world failures and testing the system’s resilience.

How to Do Functional Testing

To perform functional testing effectively, it’s essential to:

• Set goals: Define clear testing goals and parameters.
• Create test data: Develop relevant test data for accurate testing.
• Design test cases: Develop test cases to cover various functionality aspects.

Functional Testing Strategies

Functional testing strategies include scripted testing, which provides a structured approach to ensure consistent test execution, and exploratory or Ad-Hoc testing, which allows testers to explore the application freely. Employing a combination of both strategies ensures comprehensive test coverage and reliability of the application.

• Scripted Testing: Provides a structured approach to ensure consistent test execution.
• Exploratory Testing: Allows testers to explore the application freely for comprehensive test coverage.

Real-world examples and use cases demonstrate the importance of functional testing in identifying and resolving software issues before deployment. Test scenarios include installation testing, boundary value analysis, equivalence partitioning, error guessing, API testing, and regression testing, addressing common user actions and pathways.

Functional testing is a section of software testing that validates software against pre-determined specifications and requirements. This testing ensures that software is performing as both developers and end-users expect. These requirements are translated into test cases for testers to execute, ranging from responsiveness and navigation to connectivity and payment funnels. Functional tests often use a black box testing where the code is unknown. The tester uses inputs/outputs to validate functionality and any issues or “Bugs” are then reported back to the development team via bug tracking software.

Each of the issues or Bugs reported are categorized by the tester and given a severity. Although definitions can change across companies and teams the common standard is as follows

• Class A issue: This is a what is commonly referred to as a “Showstopper” and is an issue that crashes the game or application rendering it unplayable, alternatively a hard freeze which locks the the game, impeding progress and generally requiring the user to restart the application. (Note a soft freeze is a serious but temporary issue that allows the user to regain control of the application without having to restart it)
• Class B issue: This is a serious issue that is extremely noticeable to the end user but it does not impede progress in the game or a serious issue that has a workaround for the user without quitting or restarting the application.
• Class C issue: These are normally reserved for minor issues such as text issues (misspellings, truncations or overlaps) but they can also be minor graphical or gameplay issues that while are not urgent fixes, they should be addressed to add polish to the game.
• Class D issues: These are normally reserved for suggestions, if the tester thinks that a mechanic could use some fine-tuning, or has an idea that may improve the overall end-user experience then the development team (if in agreement) may find time to implement this change.

Example Bug

Severity Major

Description: This is a brief description of the bug. On level five of Flower Squad, the user encounters a plant that cannot be collected named the “Suntrap”.

Steps to Reproduce (STR):

1. Start a new game of Flower Squad and proceed to level 5.
2. Take the path marked “Highlands” at the end of the road leading out of the starting area.
3. Once the crossroad is reached head left across the sunflower field and observe the giant sunflower growing at its center named “Suntrap”.
4. Try to use your gather bonnet to pick and collect the “Suntrap” flower.
5. Observe that although your character makes the digging motion to unearth the flower nothing happens and the plant remains in place.

Reproduction rate: This metric tracks how many times the bug is seen, if it was a one-time occurrence, or if it is 100% reproducible or repeatable. Reproduced: 10/10

Result: The Suntrap is unable to be gathered.

Expected result: The user should be able to collect all named plants and flowers in the game using the gather bonnet.

Conclusion

Functional testing cannot be overlooked or done without proper planning and expertise. It helps verify whether your application is working as intended and if not pours light on the issues that need to be addressed before launch. Even if an application passes non-functional tests and performs well, it has to deliver the expected results to be considered functional for end-users. It is sometimes left as an afterthought by some development teams or not given a high enough priority, however, after you poured your blood sweat and tears into bringing your dream game to live, you cannot afford to let it sink in a more of bad reviews due to poor QA!

XQA provides a dynamic functional QA testing solution comprising dedicated testers, a tailored test management platform aligned with client cycles, and a strategic testing process. Our approach is adaptable to your requirements, guaranteeing comprehensive test coverage to pinpoint any discrepancies between expected and actual performance. Curious about the capabilities of XQA? Reach out to explore how we can elevate your testing experience.