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Introduction to QA Engineering

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Black Box Testing

2:58 with Ryan Saul

Black box testing is mostly what we’ve described in our previous lessons. The tester does not need to know anything about how the system or software works to test it.

Definitions:

  • Black Box: A tester with no knowledge of the underlying code and only tests according to the desired user experience.
  • White Box: A tester with intimate knowledge of the underlying code and allows that to inform them where to test.

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    [MUSIC] 0:00
    Hello again. 0:04
    This will be our final stage into our Intro to QA. 0:06
    At this point you've got in a lot of the basics down. 0:10
    You know how to manually test software, you know how to write and execute a test 0:12
    case, you know how to organize those test cases into a test plan, and 0:17
    how to write bug reports. 0:21
    So at this point, we'd like to talk about where to go from here. 0:24
    In the next videos, we'll talk a lot about how to become a better QA engineer and 0:28
    how to go beyond the basics of just writing test cases and reporting bugs. 0:34
    Armed with some of this knowledge, you should be able to find more resources and 0:39
    avenues of testing to make your software better and more reliable. 0:44
    First I wanna talk about the concept of black box versus white box testing. 0:49
    Black box testing is mostly what we've described in our previous lessons. 0:55
    The tester does not need to know anything about how the system or 0:59
    the software works to test it. 1:03
    The tester is only concerned about how the end user would see the software. 1:06
    One example is with our RSVP app. 1:11
    You can test out loading the page and inviting someone, but 1:14
    you otherwise don't need to know about what's going on under the hood. 1:17
    On the other end, we have white box testing. 1:22
    This is where a QA engineer might know a lot about the underlying code that makes 1:25
    the software run. 1:30
    By being a white box tester, you can review code and help implement unit tests. 1:31
    In our RSVP app, 1:37
    we could be a white box tester by creating some unit tests for the new class. 1:39
    We strive to approach QA from both angles. 1:44
    Knowing how complex some parts of the code are to test and why even tiny 1:47
    changes to them can mean dramatic changes around the app, is a useful trait. 1:52
    But it's also useful to take an impartial look at the software from time to time and 1:57
    have empathy for the user. 2:02
    An important scenario to note here is that the developers and 2:05
    white box testers can easily get caught up in the implementation of the software. 2:08
    Fixing a certain defect may seem impossible to a developer at first glance, 2:13
    and they might be willing to let the defect slide because of the complexity in 2:18
    fixing it. 2:22
    But we shouldn't lose sight that it's the end-users experience that really matters. 2:23
    Thinking about these problems from a black box perspective 2:29
    should give you some more grounding and leverage in discussions about what to fix. 2:32
    Maybe a simple fix is to remove the feature altogether and 2:37
    give the user another way to get what they need done. 2:41
    In our next two videos, we'll go over some ways that you can employ both 2:45
    types of testing, and export totally new ways 2:49
    to test that go beyond the simple basics we've covered in previous lessons. 2:52

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