Positive Vs. Negative Testing: How to Incorporate Them into Your Software Product
Testing the quality of your software is vital to releasing a reliable product. Here’s how positive and negative testing can help enhance your software’s functionality, performance, and security.
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More chaptersReleasing a quality software product is vital to the success of your business. It can help you establish a dedicated user base, gain a competitive advantage, and – in the case of internal software – boost productivity and efficiency.
One of the most important ingredients to a successful software product is testing and quality assurance. However, there are many ways to do testing. This is why it’s important to work with a development team that follows industry best practices when it comes to testing.
In this article, you’ll learn about positive vs negative testing. We’ll cover their basic definitions, differences, real-world examples, and common strategies and methods that enhance their software testing practices.
Key Takeaways:
- Positive and negative testing evaluates how the software responds to specific user inputs.
- Positive testing confirms that a software product functions as intended, while negative testing evaluates the response to invalid inputs.
- Positive and negative testing can assess the functionality of contact forms, eCommerce payment systems, and more.
What Is Positive Testing?
Positive testing is a software testing type that determines whether an input (or action) will produce the desired outcome.
Positive testing cases are written by the testing team. These test cases represent the different actions that a user will perform when using a software product. They are designed to confirm that the user journey aligns with the developer’s intended outcomes.
Since positive testing is designed to test only for outcomes intended by the development team, the testing coverage pool is usually smaller than a negative testing one. This is referred to as testing for valid inputs.
What Is Negative Testing?
Whereas positive testing is designed to test only for valid inputs, negative testing is the opposite. Negative testing is a type of testing procedure that tests for inputs (or actions) not intended by the development team. These are referred to as invalid inputs.
Negative testing determines how a software product responds to invalid inputs. Under the right circumstances, an invalid input should result in an error message or another type of response that prevents the user from performing an invalid action.
By performing negative testing, the development team can identify and address any bugs, errors, or issues that risk the software’s functionality, performance, and security.
What Are the Differences Between Positive and Negative Testing?
The main differences between positive and negative testing are their role in the software development life cycle (SDLC), their level of complexity, and the type of inputs they test for. Let’s cover these differences in greater detail.
Role in the SDLC
Positive testing confirms that a software product functions as intended by the development team. This means that it only tests for valid inputs. It is designed to confirm that the set inputs will lead to the intended outcomes.
Negative testing, on the other hand, tests only for invalid inputs. Its purpose is to help developers identify the parts of the software that need addressing. An example of a negative test would be to see how the software responds when a user types in numbers in a text-only field.
Level of Complexity
In terms of complexity, positive testing is much simpler than negative testing. This is because positive testing covers far fewer testing inputs, requires less technical knowledge, and is usually quicker to carry out. Also, valid inputs are easier to replicate in a controlled environment, which makes it easier to identify and address issues.
Since negative testing tests for invalid inputs, the number of possible inputs to test for is greater than valid inputs. This makes the process more time-consuming as it requires testing for a broader range of scenarios. Also, negative testing can be performed only by qualified experts, those who can safely test the limits of a software product.
Type of Inputs to Test For
Positive testing is designed to test only for valid inputs. These are actions developers intend for users to carry out throughout the user journey. An example of a valid input would be typing in the correct numbers to confirm a phone number field.
Negative testing is designed to test only for invalid inputs. These are actions that the developer does not intend for the user to carry out. Allowing users to perform certain invalid inputs could compromise the software’s functionality, performance, and security.
An example of an invalid input would be a user typing in numbers into – what is supposed to be – a text-only field. Under such circumstances, the ideal response from an invalid input would be to produce an error message. This should prevent the user from performing an invalid action.
Positive and Negative Testing Methods and Strategies
There are many ways to carry out positive and negative testing. Each testing method comes with its pros and cons, as well as its ideal use cases.
Boundary Value Analysis
A boundary value analysis is a type of test case that is designed to test the boundary values of valid and invalid inputs. It is designed to test the software’s behavior when users type in values to the field’s limits.
When testing is performed within the boundary’s limits, that’s considered positive testing. However, when testing is performed outside of the boundary’s limits, that’s negative testing.
Equivalence Testing
Equivalence testing is a black box test, where input data is divided into equivalent partitions. Each partition represents input values that exhibit similar behavior in the software. Categorizing these partitions makes it easier to prepare input values for specific test cases.
Real-World Examples of Positive and Negative Testing
There are many real-world cases where positive and negative testing can help improve the quality of a software product.
At Orient Software, we follow the Agile methodology to incorporate positive and negative testing into our workflow. This approach enables us to confirm that a software product performs as intended. It also lets us identify and address any issues caused by invalid inputs.
Here are some real-world examples of positive and negative testing in action:
Testing Contact Forms
Let’s say you need to confirm the functionality of a contact form that consists of text and numerical fields.
An example of a positive test would be to confirm that the phone number field accepts numerical values between 0 and 9. On the other hand, a negative test would evaluate how the software responds to letters and special characters in the phone field.
eCommerce Stores
When testing an eCommerce store’s functionality, you want to confirm that customers can add items to their baskets.
In this case, a positive test would be adding different items to the shopping basket then confirming those items can be processed. On the other hand, a negative test would involve testing invalid inputs, payment failures, and broken links. For example, typing in an invalid home address for delivery.
File Uploads
Many software products and websites allow you to upload files. Depending on the product, this may include images, videos, audio, and documentation.
Part of the positive testing process may involve confirming that a software product can accept the desired file types. Meanwhile, part of the negative testing process may include seeing what happens when a user tries to upload invalid file types.
Enhance the Quality of Your Software Testing
Whether you’re releasing a new software product or updating an existing one, testing and quality assurance are vital to releasing a quality product.
At Orient Software, our QA and software testing services are designed to help you release fast, reliable, and secure software products. Our experts are hand-picked based on the skills and qualifications you require. Plus, our work is transparent and efficient, assuring you that your project is taken care of by qualified experts.
To learn more about our software product testing services, contact us today.
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