How to QA a WordPress site?

• October 26, 2018
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When working on a project, you spend hours on end to write an extensive code. You think you have finalized your code and the project is ready for launch? You can finally take a breather while sitting back and relax because the labor work is finally done? I am here to tell you that you are absolutely WRONG.

There are still a million things to do. In web-development and its productivity, you need to look for its efficiency in each and every system. Quality is the first thing that you should continuously strive for improvement. Secondly, it doesn’t have to be all shiny and glittery. Simplicity sometimes goes a long way for making a project amazing.

That’s why considering the importance of QA on WordPress, we have created this article to elaborate the process.

1) Functional Testing

The first and the most important step when doing QA for a WordPress project is ‘Functional Testing’. A tester guarantees that all the functional requirement are satisfied according to a documented functional requirement or test cases.

These requirements are generally gathered at the start of the project when project requirements are being defined.

Major Functional Testing Techniques:

• Smoke testing
• Unit testing
• Integration testing
• Sanity testing
• Regression testing
• Usability testing
• System testing
• User-Acceptance testing

Checklist for Functional Testing:

• Verify the main features/Functions of application
• Verify form validations
• Verify animation & flash-work
• Verify links testing
• Verify errors handling
• Verify correct data storing in Database
• Verify End-to-End workflow

Tools for Functional Testing:

• Selenium
• QTP
• SoapUI

2) Usability Testing

Usability testing is all about User-experience. This type of testing is very important for the success of a website.
A tester verifies that, is this site User-friendly? As there is a famous quote “ the first impression is the last impression”, therefore, it’s very important that when a user interacts with the system it should be good enough without any User Interface issues.
Important Points under Usability Testing are as follows: 

• Verify the design consistency
• Verify that logo appearing on all pages
• Verify images are displaying properly
• Verify videos are working fine
• Check for paragraphs, headings alignment (left, right, center), and font consistency (size, weight, family of font).
• Verify all buttons and links are clickable
• Verify all buttons are of the same size

Tools for Usability Testing:

• Reflector
• Loop

3) Compatibility Testing

Compatibility testing is self-explanatory as per its name. It is a technique of testing in which tester identifies the efficiency of the application that how well it can perform when it runs on different operating systems like Microsoft Windows (i.e. Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows Vista), Apple’s macOS , iOS, Chrome OS, Blackberry Tablet-OS, and on different browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, Microsoft edge, and different mobile devices like iPhone, Android phones, Tablets & iPads.

There is a higher possibility to get bugs on Safari & Microsoft edge Web Browsers as compared to google chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

Types of Compatibility Testing:

• Browser compatibility testing
• Hardware
• Networks
• Mobile Devices
• Operating System
• Versions

Checklist for Compatibility Testing:

• Check fonts size is valid on all devices & systems
• Check alignments on different screens dimensions
• Check change in UI/Design
• Check issues of the scroll bar

Tools for Compatibility Testing:

• Cross-browser tool
• GhostLabs
• Browsershots
• Simulators & Emulators

4) Performance Testing

It goes under the non-functional testing, it’s all about the clients’ expectation.The client does not disclose it while providing the requirements. However, the developer should realize that it’s a necessity for the client, but most of the time it is not the case. This is where the QA tester is responsible for checking the system regarding responsiveness and stability under the distinctive loads.

Following are the types of performance testing which QA person should perform before launching the WordPress site live:

Load Testing:
Testing of website performance with increasing load.

Stress Testing: 
Testing of a site with load beyond its ability to handle.

Spike Testing:
Testing of the website with a sudden increase and decrease of the workload.

Scalability Testing:
Scalability Testing can be defined as an application’s ability to maintain constant user response times regardless of how many users are on the system simultaneously.

Volume Testing:
Testing website performance with a certain amount of data.

Issues that usually tester experienced during Performance Testing:

• Response time issues
• Extend of time duration for loading
• Bottlenecking
• Scalability issues
• Operating System limitations
• Network Configuration issues
• Memory Utilization
• CPU Utilization

Tools for Performance Testing:

• Apache JMeter
• WebLoad
• WAPT
• Hp Loadrunner

5) Security Testing

Security testing is used to determine that the system protects confidential data by maintaining its functionality. This testing performed to check if an application or system is vulnerable to any number of potential attacks.

Security testing has become a critical phase of Software Development life cycle. Tester has to find the security threats that can exist on the system.

Two kinds of Security Testing:

• Penetration testing
• Vulnerability testing

Checklist for security testing of WordPress sites:

• Verify that SSL used and implemented properly. (Some websites use SSL but they didn’t configure it properly. So, the Bad guy (the hacker) can break this layer easily
• Verify that two-step verification is implemented for administrators account
• Verify reCAPTCHA
• Verify that system is asking for the strong password
• Verify the “Reset password” section
• Verify that sensitive information remains stored in the browser cache
• Verify that ‘‘Remember my password’’ mechanism implemented properly
• Verify that WP, plugins, and themes are up to date to latest patches and version
• Verify Database and files backup is configured
• Verify that sessions are automatically expired after a long period of time
• Verify that user is restricted to login with invalid username, Email & Password
• Verify usernames should be unique

Tools for Security Testing:

• Google Nogotofail
• Veracode

Written By: Hira Nasim