V&V Testing

Overview:

In this blog, let’s dive into the fundamentals of Verification and Validation (also known as V&V) in terms of a software product. Though these are the very basic concept of software testing but sometimes you’ll find it complicated too. The key idea behind V&V is to check whether a software system is meeting its requirements & specifications or not. Moreover, Verification is the process of avoiding defects & Validation is to find defects. It also acts like a Software Quality Control.

Let’s look into the definition:

Verification (Static Testing):

By the term Verification, we ensure that whether we are building the product right. In other words, we can say that the activities involved in verification are Inspection, Review & Walk-through. It is low-level testing & done without executing the code.

For Example: Are we building a product right?

Validation (Dynamic Testing):

Validation is the process where we validate the product which is developed is right/wrong. In simple words, Validation means to validate the expected & actual output of the software. It is high-level testing & checked by executing the code.

For example: Are we building the right product?

Just to minimize the complexity, let’s look more deeply into the key differences :

• Without involving the execution of code, verification includes checking of documents, design, code & program. On the other hand, Validation involves the execution of code & it validates the actual product.

• Static testing (verification) includes reviews, inspection, walk-through, desk checking, etc. It finds bugs early in the software development life cycle, whereas Validation (Dynamic Testing) finds the bugs that the verification process does not catch. It comprises White box testing, Black box testing & another non-functional testing.

• QA teams do the verification and make sure that the software meets its requirements as per the software requirement documents. Later on, Test engineers validate the software application by executing the code.

Let’s take an example:

Suppose we are creating a login page for Opencart:

The login page includes the following user credentials like username, password, and a login button.

Now, let’s assume that these credentials have certain limits, for eg:

• Username must be between 3 to 16 characters only(Must start with an alphabet).
• The password must be between 8 to 20 characters(Must include 1 capital letter, 1 special character & should be alphanumeric ).
• And on clicking the log in button, it must redirect to the Home page.

So, under the Verification method, we’ll check the documentation of the login page & code structure of it. Also, we’ll check the grammar part of the login page. Once we have inspected all the features, we’ll proceed further for Validation.

Here, we’ll validate the username & password by applying the positive & negative inputs & will record the expected & actual result. After clicking on the login button if we are redirected to the home page,

it means what we have verified in the very early stage of SDLC meets its requirements & the login page is validated as per the customer requirement.

But if this is not the case, means expected & actual result does not match with each other, it indicates that something is missed at the time of verification by the QA team. Further, the process of rectifying errors will take place in order to meet the requirements & to validate the product.

That’s all about V&V Testing.