Black Box Testing: An In-depth Tutorial with Examples and Techniques

This guide aims to acquaint you with the different types and approaches of Black-box Testing, as well as its procedures, advantageous and disadvantageous aspects, along with a few automated tools for testing it, besides manual trials.

We will also discuss the dissimilarities between White Box Testing and Black Box Testing.

We participate in Black Box Testing every day!

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we all have participated in Black box Testing multiple times in our daily lives!!

It’s fair to agree from the name itself, it involves engaging with the system you’re scrutinizing in a mysterious box. It suggests that you’re not profoundly informed about the internal mechanism of the system, yet you understand its expected behavior.

Taking the example of examining our car or bike, we consistently drive it to verify it doesn’t exhibit unusually. See? We’ve already conducted Black Box Testing.

Compilation of “Black Box Test Techniques” Guides

Guide #1: An Overview of Black Box Testing
Guide #2: A Look into White Box Testing
Guide #3: Functional Testing Simplified
Guide #4: An understanding of Use Case Testing
Guide #5: Orthogonal Array Testing Technique

Methods

Guide #6: Understanding Boundary Value Analysis and Equivalence Partitioning
Guide #7: Decision Table Testing
Guide #8: State Transition Testing
Guide #9: Error Guessing
Guide #10: Techniques for Graph-Based Testing

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An Extensive Guide on Black Box Testing

What is Black Box Testing?

Black Box Testing can also be described as behavioral, opaque-box, closed-box, spec-based, or eye-to-eye assessment.

It’s a Software Testing strategy that studies the functions of a software solution/utility without being aware of the internal structure/design of the item that’s being evaluated and compares the input value with the output value.

Black Box Testing’s core area of interest is the functions of the system as a whole. The term ‘Behavioral Testing’ is also applicable to Black Box Testing.

Behavioral test design varies slightly from black-box test design, as the application of internal knowledge isn’t absolutely prohibited, but it’s typically discouraged. Every testing strategy brings its own set of pros and cons. Some bugs can’t be detected using only black box or white box techniques.

A significant number of applications are examined using the Black Box methodology. We need to cover a large portion of test cases so that the majority of the bugs can be identified using the Black-Box methodology.

Testing occurs throughout the phases of Software Development and Testing Life Cycle, i.e., Unit, Integration, System, Acceptance, and Regression Testing cycles.

This testing can be either Functional or Non-Functional.

Variants of Black Box Testing

In practical reality, several types of Black Box Testing can be executed, but when we examine a major variant of it then only the following are the two fundamental ones.

#1) Functional Testing

This kind of examination is concerned with the functional needs or specifics of an application. Here, distinct operations or capabilities of the system are tested by providing input and comparing the actual output with the predicted result.

Take, for example, when we assess a Dropdown list, we click on it and authenticate if it expands and all the expected values are displayed on the list.

A few major types of Functional Testing include:

• Smoke Testing
• Sanity Testing
• Integration Testing
• System Testing
• Regression Testing
• User Acceptance Testing

=> Learn More about Functional Testing

#2) Non-Functional Testing

Besides the functionalities of the requirements, numerous non-functional elements also need to be tested to enhance the quality and performance of the application.

A few primary types of Non-Functional Testing include:

• Usability Testing
• Load Testing
• Performance Testing
• Compatibility Testing
• Stress Testing
• Scalability Testing

=> Learn More about Non-Functional Testing

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Instruments for Black Box Testing

Black Box Testing tools mainly consist of file and playback utilities. These tools are employed for Regression Testing to verify whether a new build has introduced any bugs in the previous working application functionality.

These file and playback tools and record test cases in the form of scripts like TSL, VB script, Javascript, Perl, etc.

Techniques of Black Box Testing

In order to methodically test a set of functions, it’s essential to design test cases. Testers can create test cases from the requirement specification document using the following Black Box Testing techniques:

• Equivalence Partitioning
• Boundary Value Analysis
• Decision Table Testing
• State Transition Testing
• Error Guessing
• Graph-Based Testing Methods
• Comparison Testing

Now, let’s delve into each technique in detail:

#1) Equivalence Partitioning

This method is also known as Equivalence Class Partitioning (ECP). In this method, the input values to the system or application are divided into various classes or groups based on their similarities in the result.

So, instead of using every single input value, we can now use a single value from each group/class to test the outcome. This way, we can sustain test coverage while reducing the quantity of rework and most importantly, the time consumed.

To illustrate:

<img class=”alignnone wp-image-24007 size-full” src=”https://iptvassist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Equivalence-Partitioning.jpg” alt=’Equivalence Partitioning’ width=”411″ height=”194″ srcset=”https://iptvassist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Equivalence-Partitioning.jpg 411

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