What is Black Box Testing ? Explained with Framework and Tools

Software testing is a vital and necessary component of the software development lifecycle. It is essential to verify that the software meets the specified quality standards and performs as expected. There are two main approaches to software testing. They are:

1. Black box testing
2. White box testing

The black box testing approach involves testing the system without the means of internal code. In a nutshell, the software testing team performs black-box testing by reviewing the functional performance of the specific feature against specific requirements.

Opting for Black Box testing can have a positive impact in increasing productivity as well as shipping products faster.

What is Black Box Testing?

Black Box Testing is a method of software testing in which a software tester performs functional testing of each and every application without reviewing internal code. Moreover, the internal code is not revealed to the software testing team.

Since the internal code is hidden from the testing professional it is named as Black Box testing.

Objectives of Black Box testing

The main objectives of Black Box testing are:

• Detect Functional flaws in the product
• Test individually from a feature specific point of view
• Identify issues related to performance and usability of the product

There are various types of Black Box testing that can be employed by companies in their test automation journey.

Main Types of Black-Box Testing

1. Functional Testing

Functional testing is a type of Black Box testing that helps in detecting the functional defects as well as bugs related to functionality of features individually and as a whole. QA professionals frame in-depth feature-specific test cases. Secondly, software testers feed these test cases into their tests and identify bugs.

2. Non-Functional Testing

Non-Functional testing is a testing methodology that helps testers detect bugs related to usability, scalability, security, reliability, performance, accessibility, to name a few.

3. Regression Testing

Developing new features or updating existing components can sometimes lead to bugs across the software. Regression test cases are framed by test engineers to ensure that the new features do not affect the existing features.

4. UI Testing

A seamless user interface is a key aspect for delivering a user-friendly application. As part of UI testing, software testers ensure that the software's usability and functionality are tested well and aligned with the requirements. A buggy UI can lead to a bad user experience, causing an increase in customer churn rate.

5. Compatibility Testing

This is one of the most important aspects of black box testing. Testing application across various dimensions such as browsers, operating systems, and devices is called compatibility testing.

6. Security Testing

Any threat of hacking, security breach, or cyber-crime vulnerabilities is tested several times under security testing.

Advantages of Black Box Testing

• No Coding - Software testers don't require prior coding knowledge to test the software functionality.
• Early Bug Detection - Functional bugs can be detected early in the development cycle.
• Integration testing - Validation of the software's integration with other software components can be done easily.
• Enterprise Application Testing - Large-scale software applications can be tested with high accuracy and speed.
• Requirement Analysis - Testing can be started early in the requirement analysis phase itself. This helps software testers to cross-check whether the software aligns with the requirements.

Dis-Advantages of Black Box Testing

• Coding & Logic - Internal source code as well as other logic can't be tested using Black Box testing.
• Repetitive Tasks - Many features with overlapping functionalities have to be tested repeatedly.
• PRDs dependency - The entire testing process heavily depends on the effectiveness of the product requirement documents.
• Detecting the root cause - While performing tests can be easy, detecting the root cause of the bug identified might be challenging.

Best Tools & Framework for Black Box Testing

DevAssure is one of the most powerful test automation software that uses hybrid testing’s best practices. Furthermore, Hybrid testing is one of the best test automation frameworks used in test automation.

Hybrid Test Automation Framework:

The hybrid testing framework is a combination of modular, data, as well as keyword-driven testing frameworks.

Moreover, it is highly data-driven. End-to-end testing of Complex applications can be easily performed.

DevAssure - Black box testing tool

DevAssure is a test automation tool that is built with key practices of black-box testing. Furthermore, it also enables users to perform the following testing such as:

• Web and Mobile Web Automation
• Visual Regression Testing
• API Automation and Validation
• Accessibility Testing
• Database Validations
• Data-driven testing
• Cross-browser testing
• Parallel testing
• CI/CD integration

To experience on how DevAssure can help QA teams, please click the button below and sign-up for our 14-day free trial.

Summary

Black box testing follows a balanced approach towards software testing. Moreover, black box testing can test the behavior of the software.

All the test cases are framed from the end-user's perspective. Using test automation tools such as DevAssure, which opts for black box testing using a Hybrid test automation framework, users can seamlessly perform black box testing and overcome its limitations.