What is smoke testing and what are its characteristics?

Today every enterprise needs high-quality software to deliver a great customer experience (CX). The high-quality software not only uplifts the brand’s image but also helps businesses to gain a competitive edge. But few issues like broken functionality or feature can affect the quality of software. These issues can arise due to some faults in the development process knowingly or unknowingly and must be rectified early. To check this businesses perform smoke testing. Let us now take a closer look at some testing to know more about it in detail.

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What is smoke testing?

Smoke testing is a functional type of software testing method where the test is conducted on the initial build of the software to ensure that all the critical functionalities of the software are working as expected. The main aim of this testing method is to determine whether the build is stable or not and is it worth further test the product or not.

When smoke testing is performed?

Usually, this test is performed at the beginning of the software testing lifecycle to find defects in the initial build of the software. Also, whenever any change is made in the software build or a new build is deployed, this testing is performed.  If this test is not performed, some bugs can occur in later stages that can adversely affect the quality of software. 

Example:

• Test Description – To check the video launch functionality

• Steps - Go to the video page and click the video

• Expected results – Smooth playback of the video

• Actual result – Video player not popping up

• Test status – Fail

Failed test results indicate that the functionality of the application is not working properly and need to be fixed by developers. Thus, it is not feasible to test this product further until the issue is fixed.

Three major types of smoke testing

1. Manual Smoke Testing: It is performed to ensure that the critical path navigation is as expected and does not affect the functionality of the software. The build is released to QA teams and teams ensure that the high-priority features work flawlessly. If the test succeeds, the team further tests the product and if the test fails, the build is sent back for corrections to the development teams. 

2. Automated smoke test: In this testing type, automated test cases are used to perform a smoke test. In this test, recorded smoke test cases are reused with the help of the record and playback feature. It verifies whether or not the main features are working properly. If the test fails, the corrections are done and the build is subsequently redeployed. It aids in saving the team's time and efforts.

3. Hybrid smoke test: Hybrid is the combination of manual and automated smoke tests which includes the use of human efforts and skills along with automated tools to the efficiency of smoke testing.

What are the characteristics of smoke testing?

• It is also known as build verification testing or build acceptance testing.

• It follows a shallow and wide approach of testing, where only the most common/basic functionalities are tested

• It checks the stability of the new build

• It is performed by developers or testers

• Smoke tests are documented or scripted

• It is performed manually and can also be automated using automation testing tools

What are the advantages of smoke testing?

• Smoke testing ensures early and effective bug identification in SDLC which helps in saving time. 

• Accepts or rejects the software based on the stability of the product. 

• Helps in easy and faster bug resolution

• Ensures the quality of the product as defects are identified early and fixed as soon as they occur. 

• Enables faster feedback which helps the teams to speed up the process of SDLC

• Ensures whether the product is suitable for further testing processes or not, thus prevents teams from spending unnecessary time and effort on faulty software in later stages (if any). 

• Smoke testing requires a very limited number of test cases.

Conclusion: Smoke testing plays an important role in validating the stability of software build. It helps to find defects in the initial build of the software and helps teams to decide whether it is feasible to conduct further types of tests on the software or not. Businesses must leverage smoke testing from a next-gen QA and software testing services provider to achieve high-quality software.