Briefly describe the three principal stages of testing for a commercial software system.

Briefly describe the three principal stages of testing for a commercial software system.

Answer: 1. Development testing, where the system is tested during development to discover bugs and defects. System designers and programmers are likely to be involved in the testing process.

2. Release testing, where a separate testing team tests a complete version of the system before it is released to users. The aim of release testing is to check that the system meets the requirements of system stakeholders.

3. User testing, where users or potential users of a system test the system in their own environment. For software products, the ‘user’ may be an internal marketing group who decide if the software can be marketed, released, and sold. Acceptance testing is one type of user testing where the customer formally tests a system to decide if it should be accepted from the system supplier or if further development is required.