Human-Computer Interface Testing

Human-Computer Interface Testing

The human-computer interface (HCI) in modern computers can cover a wide variety of peripheral devices such as a keyboard, a mouse, a keypad, a speech interface, a touch screen monitor, a light pen, a scanner, and many others. Furthermore, in the case of the use of large production control systems operating on the basis of large computers, a large number of operators may be required to work with the program, each of which has its own personal computer acting as a terminal of a large computer. Test planning is extremely important for supervising the process of testing the human-computer interface, because, perhaps, this is the only testing in which the product is viewed completely from the user’s viewpoint. Through this interface, many functional user requirements are available for testing, and this is the main objective of system tests.

When using the human-computer interface to perform testing from the user perspective, one important circumstance should be considered. If the testing team starts testing from the system test phase and at the same time heavily uses the human-computer interface, the test range will be very limited. Testing the human-computer interface is just one of many ways to perform rapid testing for the purpose of uncovering bugs. In fact, as a rule, the process of testing the human-computer interface is not very effective in the search for even the most common errors, since this process is more focused on checking the flow of data along the product’s execution path, and this path has already undergone intensive unit testing performed based on carefully designed scenarios. You are welcome to consider user interface testing services to find out whether or not defects are present in the user graphical interface of an application being examined.

When organizing the testing of the human-computer interface, it is always useful that the database administrator and several end users should cooperate with the test team members. They can develop test cases, test scenarios and a technique for processing test results to verify that the input data on the screen is correct. Further such information is stored in the corresponding database records, processed and used to prepare the reports. The database administrator and users can also create test cases, test scenarios, and a technique for processing test results to verify that the output is formatted correctly and transferred to the appropriate media or to communication buffers.