Published: 21 May 2018

Last Updated: 29 Jan 2020

• QA testing
  

Software quality has become indispensable, and test coverage is one of the key indicators to measure software quality. Test coverage is an essential part of software maintenance and assists testers in creating tests that cover areas that are missing or not reachable easily.

Contents

1. Test Coverage and Code Coverage
2. How to attain more Test Coverage in less time
3. Test Coverage Metrics and Best Practices
4. Best Practices of Test Coverage
5. Conclusion

Test Coverage and Code Coverage

Test coverage is often confused with Code Coverage. Although both metrics are used to evaluate the quality of application code, code coverage is a term to describe what percentage of the application code is exercised when a user is interacting with the application. Test Coverage, on the other hand, is testing every business requirement at least once and is clearly a QA team activity.

How to attain more Test Coverage in less time

Testers are always running on a tight schedule and have to focus on ensuring maximum coverage within the stipulated time primarily. In order to achieve this, there are few methods described below:

• Using Automation Tools:
One of the modern testing methods any company or in fact any testing group can adopt is the usage of the right Automation Tool. Nowadays, there are plenty of tools in the market, making a testers life easy. One must identify the right testing tool for the application.

• Maintain Proper Checklist:
Maintaining a proper checklist for every communication under the given module/tasks can help in achieving efficient task coverage.

• Prioritizing Requirements:
Prioritization of requirements is one thing which is a must to achieve maximum test coverage in less time. Segregating the given requirements into Simple, Medium, and Complex priorities allow testers to focus vigorously on their tasks. More focus should be on the new requirements that are going LIVE in the next release.

• Impact Analysis:
Identifying impacts in the preliminary builds and consequently increasing the need for eradication of these impacts can help accomplish high coverage in the upcoming builds.

• Build Management:
The test manager should keep track of all the impacts and fixes in the current build and should ensure QA receive clean build with efficient fixes.

Test Coverage Metrics and Best Practices

Metrics:
• Code coverage = (Number of lines of code exercised by the test suites)/(total number of lines of code)*100
• Requirement coverage = [(Total number of requirements) – (Total number of missed requirements)]/(Total number of requirements)*100

Best Practices of Test Coverage

• Segregate the business requirements/modules as per their criticality, frequency of use and most complex workflows.
• Develop a requirement traceability matrix for the modules/requirements.
• Utilize the test coverage as a measure for “untested paths” instead of “false sense of security.”
• Develop automated suites using frameworks integrated with code coverage utilities.
• Measure the code coverage for each release and plan to improve it with every subsequent release.
• Utilize the metrics like ‘Defect density’, ‘feature wise defect distribution’ and ‘Defect removal efficiency’ as a guide to ensure improved coverage for subsequent releases.

Conclusion

Testing is indispensable; we are aware of the fact. Therefore a tester should pay heed to every aspect of the requirement specification and plan a test strategy accordingly. A test can never be complete without proper attention to the several requirements because a product must deliver what is expected of it.

Maximum test coverage is certain when a tester is completely prepared with the test plan, test strategy, test cases, etc. With a strategic approach, one may progress towards achieving the desired objectives. Connect with us to find out more about TestingXperts’ capabilities around QA, testing, and test coverage analysis.