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Differences between Black Box and White Box Testing

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As a software testing company / QA Services Company we know that testing software is a critical section in the process of development – we excel at ensuring that the software runs error and bug free, and does what it is meant to do such user experience remains elevated. As a QA company, we are focused on every minute detail of the QA process ensuring that your work processes function unhindered. While software testing might seem cumbersome and time intensive, our expertise ensures your resources and efforts receive a high ROI. Our highly detailed functional testing procedures ensure that you are safe from extensive and last minute code repair – which is a huge saving on time and money.

Differences between Black Box and White Box Testing

Software testing has two main parts: black box testing and white box testing. Simply put: white box testing is conducted in the early stages of the development cycle, and involves unit and integration testing. Black box testing on the other hand is at a higher level, meant to target system and acceptance testing, and hence is part of the later stages of the development cycle.

White Box Testing

The checking of the internal functioning of the system is the testing technique called White Box Testing, and is considered a low level testing. It assumes that the path of the logic within a program or unit is already known, and is based on the coverage of branches, paths or conditions, and code statements.

Techniques used for White Box Testing (WBT) The knowledge of the tester is critical since this would help the tester determine the tests required to uncover any internal working system defects. The tester may conduct statement tests to ensure that each statement has a test case associated with it, and each statement is performed at least once in the testing cycle. Decision tests ensure that decision directions are performed at least once in the testing cycle. To ensure that all the conditions for a specific decision are working well, the tester would conduct branch condition tests, and to check all the combinations of the possible conditions, the decision / condition tests are carried out. Data flow tests ensure that the variables and data used within the system are properly tested and multiple condition tests ensure that each point of entry in the code, are tested at least once in the testing cycle.

Benefits of WBT

  • Does not require a concluded GUI and is easily undertaken by the development team
  • It is a detailed and highly methodical test thereby uncovering bugs and errors early on, and covers every possible path.
Downsides of WBT

  • X Time intensive for developers, and any code updates could invalidate test cases
  • X Difficult to isolate the program from the testing environment

Black Box Testing (BBT)

This is a higher level of testing, focused on how the software is ‘behaving’. The skill of the tester is critical since there is no information about the internal working of the system, and requires external testing from the perspective of the end-user.

Techniques of BBT The inputs are the key factors, and any of the various techniques may be used to choose the inputs during BBT. Boundary Value Analysis tests the boundary values that may have the highest possibility of flawed outputs. In order to identify various modules of errors and reduce the number of required test cases, Equivalence Class Partitioning test is undertaken. A highly skilled tester would use error guessing to check for defects and then proceed to develop analogous test cases.

Benefits of BBT

  • It is easy to create test cases, and hence testers do not need to have a high level of technical expertise.
  • The process can easily be automated, and models the experience of the end user
Downsides of BBT

  • X Tests sometimes are obsolete while being time consuming
  • X The outcomes from test can sometimes be hard to reproduce and or document, and all scenarios and software paths are not captured

What we say As a company excelling in QA Testing, Regression Testing Services, Functional Testing, Manual Testing Mobile Apps and more, we believe that it cannot be conclusively said whether WBT or BBT is better. In fact, both are required and complement each other, and using them in conjunction will ensure systematic testing procedures, which will end in a robust product and smooth release. Connect with us to get the best in class wide range of Software Testing.

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