What is Desktop Testing? Definition, Tools, Tutorials, and Best Practices

1. Desktop Testing Fundamentals

Let ’ s begin with the basics: & nbsp;What is desktop testing?& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Desktop testing is the process of quiz desktop applications. The end goal is to check its quality, functionality, and performance before introduction and after updates.
 

But what exactly is “ screen ”?& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Let ’ s say the year is 1988, and you are in complaint of desktop testing for a revolutionary, groundbreaking application that (unknown to you at the time) will modify the world of graphic design forever. That application is called & nbsp;Photoshop, and it has a feature called & nbsp;Adjust Brightness.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

As a desktop tester, this is your goal: & nbsp;ensure that this feature works properly.So what do you do? You open the app, you upload an image, and you adjust its light to certain predefined level. If the persona ’ s cleverness is properly adjusted at each level you set, you can confidently say that you have & nbsp;tested the desktop app.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Of course, this is an oversimplified example of desktop testing, but you get the thought. Normally, if it was so easy to observe a bug, all apps would have run smoothly, and there would be no clangor nor Bug Reporting pop-ups. However, in realness, bugs incline to be more sneaky. It takes a combination of various interaction with the app to trigger one.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

That is when the QA team shines.

2. Choose Your Approach to Desktop Testing

Generally, there are two approaches to desktop testing: & nbsp;manual testing & nbsp;vs. automated testing.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

•  is when you manually interact with the covering to check the feature and find bugs. Normally you would postdate a specific order of test steps to trigger the bug.
   
•  is when you write an mechanisation script (using a framework or) to interact with the application on a scheme level. You only have to compose the script once, but you can fulfil it how many times you want. It is clear that automation examination is much faster and more productive, but you do need to have some expertise in testing framework.

The model of Photoshop we mentioned above is manual testing. Here are the test steps you need to follow:

1. Launch Photoshop.
2. Open an image.
3. Navigate the mouse to the “ Adjust Brightness ” feature.
4. Adjust the brightness and control the interaction with the image.
5. Check if the numerical remark works by typewrite in several values from 0 to 100. & nbsp;
6. Check the undo/redo functionality.
7. Repeat the exam with different image type.& nbsp; & nbsp;
    

You can see how time-consuming it would be to test with different icon types. Imagine doing this with hundreds of features. There are so many variable to describe for during try that manual testing becomes counter-intuitive.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

The same test can be done automatically. Simply publish a playscript to perform those actions. You can set up the script to perform the test on a wide variety of ikon case too.

Learn More:
 

Now that we know that automation examination is great, it raises the question: & nbsp;Is manual testing really that bad?& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

The answer is no. For software testing in general and desktop testing in particular, manual testing however has its place. For representative, it would be great to manually test the system before doing the automation to “ get to know ” the app. This practice is called exploratory testing, which is essentially just play around with the app until you intuitively know the critical areas to aim.

3. Desktop App Testing vs. Web App Testing

Web-based apps are host on the web server, allowing access from any user with an internet connection. Desktop apps run on personal computers or workstation, allowing entree from the single machine on which it is installed.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

This leads to differences in the essay environments of desktop and web apps examination.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

In other words, desktop app testing is simpler in footing of intranets, where the number of its clients and servers are specified. In web apps, you feature to guarantee the app is compatible with multiple browser and operating systems (OS).& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

A desktop app is normally used by a single user on a specific operating system. This means you will receive a specific surround to quiz and monitor results.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Some common types of background app screen techniques include:

• Functionality testing
• GUI lineament screen
• Load try
• Backend (database) examination
• Memory leaks desert testing
• Compatibility testing& nbsp; & nbsp;
   

Meanwhile, web apps are tested for their functionality, serviceableness, accessibility, compatibility, performance, and security.

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4. Benefits of Desktop Testing

Testing and bugs go hand-in-hand. Without testing, we can ’ t discovery bugs, and without bug, we don ’ t need testing anymore. The end goal of desktop testing is to always reveal those nark, app-breaking, revenue-decreasing defects for the dev team to address.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

We can suppose of desktop examination as a way to continuously & nbsp;maintain & nbsp;and enhance & nbsp;software lineament.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Maintain & nbsp;comes first. Every time a new update is rolled out, users expect that old bugs have been fixed, and no new bugs are introduced. Testing ensures exactly that.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Enhance & nbsp;comes 2d, although over clip it gradually gains prominence. We want to continuously identify areas of optimisation and advance.

5. The Desktop Testing Process

This six-stage process, referred to as the Software Testing Life Cycle, is cognize as the standard procedure for the package try industry. QA teams start from & nbsp;Requirement Analysis & nbsp;where they try to understand the objectives of the examination task, then gradually plan and acquire test cases, configure the trial environment, before executing those test and study the results.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Let ’ s nosedive in.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Stage 1: Requirement Analysis& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Pro tip: Tools like SUSA can handle this autonomously — upload your app and get results without writing a single test script.

At this stage, we are interest with the interrogation of & nbsp;what ’ s to be quiz. Usually there are many stakeholders involved, near commonly being the ware owner and the dev team. They consolidate the insights collected from exploiter or their own word into a document called the & nbsp;Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM). This is the foundation for the test strategy.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Read more: & nbsp;& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

If this is the first time you test a certain package, it is well to include an exploratory examination session here. The goal of explorative examination is to add a touch of human creativity and intuition to the testing process. After all, you (or the QA team) has never worked with the software before, so it is better to play around for a little bit before the actual examination commences.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

So, what do you do? You simply launch the software and explore. Try to see if there are any “ suspicious ” country that may have a bug. Pay special attention to features that have many dependencies, or features with complex workflows. That is where the bugs typically lie.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Read more: & nbsp;

Stage 2: Test Planning& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Once you have all of the info ready, it is plan time. You will want another document to list what it is that you need to test in this desktop app. These items will be your “ exam event, ” andshould feature already started by the time you plan the task. This should save you a lot of time and effort down the road.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Here are some more particular to put in your test plan:

• Test objectives & nbsp;to delimitate just what you want to attain by the end of the task (i.e., fully examine the functionality/usability/security/performance of the desktop application)
• Deliverables & nbsp;to specify what test lawsuit will be completed
• Test scope & nbsp;to specify which region will and will not be tested
• Resources & nbsp;to specify the toll associated with the project, include human resources, testing tool, trial environment, API custom toll, etc.
• Timeline & nbsp;to specify the milestones and align it with the evolution timeline& nbsp; & nbsp;
   

There should also be a contingency plan to align those variable in suit the project moves in an unexpected way.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

These are the most common types of testing to be include in your projection:& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

• Installation/Uninstallation testing & nbsp;–to check if both processes are smooth and if there are any issues on different OS/hardware-software configuration.
• Compatibility test & nbsp;– to check if the application can run on different systems.
•  – to check if the key lineament of the app are working as expected, and at the like time check if the erroneousness and exclusion scenarios are care graciously.
• Security screen & nbsp;– to check if there are any vulnerabilities that can be tap for malicious purpose.& nbsp; & nbsp;
   

Read more: & nbsp;

Stage 3: Test Case Development& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

This is where the existent work begins.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

If you decide to take the manual approach, the test step should receive be carefully listed during the exam planning phase. For simple test cases, you may not need to be too detailed, but for some test case with complex and specific sets of actions required to trigger the bug, it is necessary to lean the test step.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Don ’ t know where to begin? Here are some sample test cases to get you started:

For automation testing, thing get a small bit easy. It is recommended that QA teams feature test analytics functionality engineered into the automation exam scripts from the get-go. Once they execute the tests, it mechanically file the answer and compiles everything into a unified spreadsheet that everyone can catch later.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Of course, you can leverage consecrate test direction tools like Xray, TestRail, or Testiny to help you with such administrative tasks. They give you visibility into which test causa passed and which test event failed, and give you a comprehensive position over the application ’ s calibre.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

It is also possible to go with a simple spreadsheet with columns dedicated to the test measure, results, determination, and suggestions for developers to reproduce/address those bugs. However, the exertion it takes to preserve this spreadsheet grows exponentially as your application gets more complex.

Stage 4: Test Environment Setup

You can start testing immediately on your test machine once you feature the examination cases ready. The tryout machine is where your coating is installed.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

However, this only works if your test machine lam on the like OS version that you want to be tested on. You ask to do some additional work if you want to test on multiple OS versions.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

To achieve that, you can & nbsp;either & nbsp;invest in another machine that runs those OS versions & nbsp;or run on a practical machine using a virtualization software, such as VMware, Hyper-V, or KVM. It is easy to see that the latter option is a better bet for your team.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Performance testing for desktop covering is another topic. The technological spec of a machine correlate directly with the execution of an application installed on it. You ’ ll need to pay attention to the disk IO, CPU, and memory swiftness.

Stage 5: Test Execution

The focus now reposition to the test execution order, the support, reporting, and how we can automate the execution process.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Generally test cases are prioritize by importance and complexity. During the test case growth degree, QA squad ordinarily assign each test example a specific tag to track and categorize them. Several good categories are:& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

• Severity (High - Medium - Low)
• Bug eccentric (Functional/Performance/Usability/Security)
• Areas of impact
• Frequency of happening& nbsp; & nbsp;
   

You can also execute tryout in parallel to increase productiveness. The approaching is to divide tryout cases into smaller subset, each with a group of related test example (specify by their tags) to be executed severally of each other.

Stage 6: Test Cycle Closure

This is the final level. Here we accumulate all of the analytics garner in the previous phase and picture them to make a comprehensive perspective over your testing effectiveness.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

For desktop testing in particular, QA teams normally pay close care to the next prosody:& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

• Test coverage: the percentage of possible test scenarios covered by the exam suit.
• Defect Density: & nbsp;the number of defects name per unit of code/feature. This metrical shew you the critical areas that need spare attention from the application, and can be a great citation point to develop a good test scheme.
• Test Pass/Fail rate: & nbsp;the number of test causa that pass/fail during execution. However, be aware that a passed exam & nbsp;does not & nbsp;equate to a working application, and vice versa, a failed test make not equalise to failure in the product. What if someone misunderstood the prerequisite and turned that misunderstanding into a test case? Be mindful of & nbsp;false positive & nbsp;and false negatives & nbsp;when regard this metrical.

6. Desktop Testing: A Tutorial With Katalon

Katalon is a comprehensive desktop examine tool with features that back the entire essay life cycle. Normally, you would need to plan and strategize the project separately on a spreadsheet or a project direction scheme such as Jira. After that, you must create your trial cases with a fabric, so execute them, and so go rearward to the tryout management system you previously built to update the datum. This creates fragmentation in the process. & nbsp;Katalon comes in and unifies all of those steps in one platform.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

To start, let ’ s download and install Katalon Studio. You instantly get approach to all of Katalon ’ s powerful features that will kick-start your desktop testing within minutes:

& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

or

& nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp;

 

If you desire to test on the current machine, do sure to also feature & nbsp;WinAppDriver. & nbsp; & nbsp;
 

To experience a new test case, you need a Katalon projection in which you store that test lawsuit. Simply go to & nbsp;File & gt; New & gt; Project & nbsp;and create a new one.

Since we ’ re testing a background application, make certain to take your “ Type ” as background. The coolheaded thing about essay with Katalon is that you can test on a rich array of AUTs: web, API, mobile, and of class, desktop apps. This versatility means you don ’ t hold to constantly swap between puppet for different types of applications& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Once done, you can create your new tryout case immediately by clicking on the icon at the toolbar:

You can nominate your trial case, write a description for it, and assign any tags you like.

In Katalon Studio, you have three test creation modes: & nbsp;No-code, Low-code, and Full-code. The full spectrum of testing is in front of you! Let ’ s go into the “ New Test Case ” and add keywords. These keywords are just code snippets that automatize specific interaction in the AUT (application under test) of your choice. As you can see hither, we have:

• Web UI Keyword
• Mobile Keyword
• Cucumber Keywords
• Web Service Keyword
• Windows Keyword
• Custom Keyword (you can make keywords that automatize any action you want)& nbsp; & nbsp;
   

What execute this mean for the quizzer? This means you can literally craft a test cause simply by opt the corresponding keywords for each test footstep. For example, if you want to automate a “ Click ” activeness, simply take the keyword “ Click, ” and specify what object you want it to click on.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Let ’ s go one step further. You can take the & nbsp;Windows Recorder & nbsp;feature and do your test manually in the application. Katalon records your succession of actions and turns them into a fully executable test script. Talking about simpleness!& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

Any test suit created and action are logged in & nbsp;Katalon TestOps. It conduct care of the administrative project so you can focus on what truly subject: testing.& nbsp; & nbsp;
 

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