Pair testing

Pair testing is a software development technique in which two team members work together at one keyboard to test the software application. One does the testing and the other analyzes or reviews the testing. This can be done between one tester and developer or business analyst or between two testers with both participants taking turns at driving the keyboard.^[1]

Description

This can be more related to pair programming and exploratory testing of agile software development where two team members are sitting together to test the software application. This will help both the members to learn more about the application. This will narrow down the root cause of the problem while continuous testing. Developer can find out which portion of the source code is affected by the bug. This track can help to make the solid test cases and narrowing the problem for the next time.

Benefits and drawbacks

The developer can learn more about the software application by exploring with the tester. The tester can learn more about the implementation of the software application by exploring with the developer.
The root cause of a bug can be analyzed more easily, and the tester can more easily test a bug fix when working with the developer.
The developer may learn better test design skills.
Pair testing may be less applicable to scripted testing where all the steps for running the test cases are already written.^{[citation needed]}

Usage

This is more applicable where the requirements and specifications are not very clear, the team is very new, and needs to learn the application behavior quickly.

This follows the same principles of pair programming; the two team members should be in the same level.

References

^ Hendrickson, Elisabeth. "Paired Exploration". Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-1-937785-02-4. One way to get everyone on the team involved in exploring is to pair them up to explore. Pairing professional testers with others is particularly effective. If a tester and a business analyst pair together, the tester is likely to learn more about the business and the expectations for the software... If a tester and a programmer pair together on exploring, the programmer is likely to gain insight about risks while the tester gains insight about the architecture.

[1] Hendrickson, Elisabeth. "Paired Exploration". Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-1-937785-02-4. One way to get everyone on the team involved in exploring is to pair them up to explore. Pairing professional testers with others is particularly effective. If a tester and a business analyst pair together, the tester is likely to learn more about the business and the expectations for the software... If a tester and a programmer pair together on exploring, the programmer is likely to gain insight about risks while the tester gains insight about the architecture.

[1]

v t e Software testing
The "box" approach	Black-box testing All-pairs testing Exploratory testing Fuzz testing Model-based testing Scenario testing Grey-box testing White-box testing API testing Mutation testing Static testing
Testing levels	Acceptance testing Integration testing System testing Unit testing
Testing types, techniques, and tactics	A/B testing Benchmark Compatibility testing Concolic testing Concurrent testing Conformance testing Continuous testing Destructive testing Development testing Differential testing Dynamic program analysis Installation testing Negative testing Random testing Regression testing Security testing Smoke testing (software) Software performance testing Stress testing Symbolic execution Test automation Usability testing
See also	Graphical user interface testing Manual testing Orthogonal array testing Pair testing Soak testing Software reliability testing Stress testing Web testing

Description

Benefits and drawbacks

Usage

See also

References