This question not only appeals to millions of software professionals to have an insight of testing a media rich platform, it also invites many inspiring testers to pull something beneficial. Moreover, it forms a part of the most prevailing questions asked in a software testing interview. In fact, you will find many such queries and their complementary answers thriving on the internet.
The range of available explanations and responses might sense appropriate in a particular context, but more often it might land you in more confusion. For example, in the context of testing a mouse, you might encounter the following answers:
- Check right and left clicks
- Check the power supply to the mouse
As already discussed, these answers might be right; however, they prove to be ineffective in creating a broad and complete sense.
In my opinion, the question is not just about testing the page. The question could have been anything falling into the same genre. However, the essence of the answer lies in the fact that how well you can apply your test strategy. In addition, your ability to think on the fly and taking decisive measures is equally important.
In order to determine a persuasive testing strategy, one should take a moment and anticipate things out of the box. A brave tester tries things differently, which often proves to be an advantageous factor.
In my understanding, testing is a process in 3 easy steps.
- Requirement: It includes the expected behavior
- Objective: Object on which the test needs to be conducted based on the requirements
- Test Case: Testing methodologies
The above-mentioned steps form a typical strategy to plan, document, and execute. However, a real-life scenario could be more challenging and complex.
Depending upon the requirements, there could be one or more test conditions. Taking an example of an alarm, you can have multiple questions on this.
- How to set the time?
- How to snooze the alarm?
- How to change the alarm tone?
Once you know this, you can define your requirements.
In the requirement of setting an alarm time, there is just one test condition to check the set time and see whether the alarm rings or not. Requirement for setting different tunes will make you test multiple test conditions. In this case, you need to check a single tune for different alarm times and multiple tunes for different alarm times.
Once the test conditions have been identified, you need to determine the exact operations that need to be carried out to perform a test. In the case of an alarm, the operation would be to push a desirable button to set an alarm.
Before executing the final step, you just need to ensure that the alarm is powered on. You might have to wait for the time that has been defined for the alarm to ring.
The above points make quite a sense. However, in case you have some better ideas, you can always jot down your thoughts to help you move in a better direction.
Now, coming to the question of testing a media rich page, the first and the foremost thing is to understand the diverse range of media. Media basically includes images, audios, videos, or any other multimedia files. It also involves icons, widgets, and hyperlinks. Websites like www.moneycontrol.com or any other financial portal sites are some of the best media rich sites.
Being rich in multimedia content makes them more vulnerable to crashes. However, they must satisfy various performance considerations including efficiency, usability, compatibility, and appearance.
Testing such pages require you to be more analytical and smart. You must consider the following areas while testing such media rich pages.
- Data must be discoverable. A lot depends upon the organization of the pages. A well-organized page is easy to navigate
- It must be compatible and work seamlessly on common browsers and platforms
- Efficiency is one of the most important parameters on which the performance is evaluated. An efficient page must allow you to do things it is intended for. For example, a YouTube page must allow you to watch, like, share, and comment on a video. However, the actual purpose of providing a seamless video display should not be compromised
- Performance often deals with the synchronization of different elements on a page. For example, while watching a video the voice must not lag behind the video. In addition, it must consume a reasonable amount of system resources to keep the page running.
- The ease with which a page can be accessed depends upon its interface. A user-friendly web page must have all the options to control the page according to the need
- The images and links should not be broken
- The page should auto refresh or update on a regular basis, with the least interference of the user.
- The content should be properly organized, preferably in paragraphs to give a clean look.
The above-mentioned points must be considered while creating test cases. These hints can help you explore new heights so that you can build your own scenarios. The idea about the web page gives a lot of scope and opportunity for mobile, performance, and other testing techniques.
