QA for Internet Applications

Quality objectives or requirements for Internet applications go beyond those for “classical” or conventional software development. Although comparable requirements for functional accurateness still hold true, special requirements or challenges result from the potential usage of an Internet application by any user. Especially high demands are placed on the user-friendliness (usability) as well as the performance and reliability of the applications.

Quality Aspects

User-friendliness

Many Internet applications are targeted towards a very heterogeneous group of users. The intention of a bookseller with his shop application is to be open and accessible to every user able and willing to spend money. This also means that only few general statements can be made with any certainity about the user’s expectations, his education, his computer knowledge and many other factors relevant for the design of screens and business processes. The result of this is the quality requirement that the look and feel of the Internet application be as intuitive and generally understandable as possible. In contrast to cassical application development, it cannot be assumed for Internet applications that idiosyncratic or otherwise unusual features in the functionality or the interface can be compensated by user training, manuals or help texts. The importance of this quality requirement therefore becomes corespondingly greater.

Performance and reliability

Due to the heterogeneous user community and the influence of unpredictable events such as current media reports, predictions of the expected number of users that might concurrently use an Internet application become especially difficult. The press or announcements in the Internet can unleash a stampede of users on certain websites or web applications. Quality requirements with respect to performance and reliability must therefore be given greater emphasis so that Internet applications can handle an assumed number of concurrent users and can also react in an acceptable manner to a much greater number.

Multi-platform installability

The provision of an application in the Internet for different system platforms is made easier by the use of standardised protocols. At the same time though, there are new challanges in the software area (e.g. operating system, browser, user settings). The hardware and software configurations of users in the Internet can only be controlled in exceptional cases. The spectrum ranges from computer “amateurs” who use a pre-configured browser with standard settings on their PC to computer “experts” who use an uncommon, perhaps even self-developed, browser with many user defined settings. A quality objective is therefore the operability of the application in all pre-defined target environments of potential users. Installation controll tests must therefore carried out in the different system configurations. Representative of this type of application are banking applications in which the user prepares his transactions offline and only goes in online modus in order to transmit his transaction data. Experience has shown that specifics of the user environment often lead to unexpected system behaviour. When such system reactions occur, the user always places the blame on the software supplier.

Accessability

The type of user access to the Internet is also diverse. A firewall is usually integrated into the system architecture of users who access the Internet from their workplace. Private users often use a dial-up access via modem and a local provider. Altogether this results in quality requirements concerning user access to an application. Every potential user of the Internet application should be able to use his preferred type of access.

Security

The danger exists that unauthorised users access information and Internet applications in an improper manner. The quality objective here is to provide all products and services only to the authorised user. At the same time, all unauthorised users must be denied access.

Up-to-dateness

The quality objective of up-to-dateness can be seen from both a contextual and a technical point of view. In the Internet, the user expects up-to-date content of an application and a modern and at all times up-to-date presentation of that content. Due to the short innovation cycles for technology and content – one speaks of seven Internet years per calendar year – a continual update of Internet applications is necessary. Links which today lead to user to associated companies or complementary products might be a dead end tomorrow. User interfaces which today appear “dynamic” and “cosmopolitan” might look “frumpy” tomorrow.

Conclusions:

Each of these aspects can entail different activities and objectives for QA in Internet projects. As a result of the extremely short development cycles in the Internet area, these tasks and activities must be solved in a pragmatic way. Even though in general the functional scope of Internet applications is less than in conventional development projects, this is essentially more than compensated by the multitude of technical chalenges in the automation of testing.