Software testing metrics are quantitative measurements that help evaluate the progress, quality, and health of your software testing efforts. Determining measurement indicators generally has the following purposes: judging the effectiveness, completeness, and product quality of the test, and ultimately analyzing and improving the test process.
By scoring indicators, you can intuitively see which indicators are more widely used and more critical in testing, and testers and teams can choose the indicators to focus on most based on this.
What are the common measurement indicators?
Code coverage, lines of code that have been tested/total lines of code. Code coverage is a very important indicator in software testing, which directly reflects the comprehensiveness and quality of testing. The higher the code coverage, the more code is tested and the greater the likelihood of detecting potential defects. The pursuit of high code coverage is one of the key goals of software testing.
Function coverage, number of verified functions/number of total functions. Functional coverage reflects the proportion of tested function points to the total function points. It evaluates the completeness and adequacy of testing to software functions. The higher the functional coverage, the better the product quality and software testing.
Defect detection rate, the number of defects found/the total number of actual defects. The defect detection rate directly reflects the efficiency of testing and product quality. Detecting more existing defects helps improve software quality and user satisfaction. The higher the defect detection rate, the more complete and effective the testing is, reflecting the coverage and quality of the testing.
Defect density, the number of defects confirmed by software/module during a specific run or development period divided by the size of the software/module, defect density reflects code quality and testing progress and is an important software quality and progress indicator. Lower defect density indicates that testing is going well and software quality is improving.
Test case execution coverage, the number of executed test cases/the total number of planned test cases. Reflects testing progress and coverage.
Defect fix rate, the number of defects fixed/the total number of defects found, reflects the efficiency of the development team.
Reproducibility, the number of recurring defects/number of defects repaired, measures the quality of testing.
The defect leakage rate, the number of defects discovered after product release/the total number of defects found, reflects the quality of the defect management process.
Which measurements are more important?
We score the main test indicators from two dimensions: frequency of use and importance:
Code coverage: 5 points
Functional coverage: 5 points
Defect detection rate: 5 points
Defect density: 4 points
Test case execution rate: 4 points
Defect fix rate: 3 points
Reproduction rate: 3 points
Defect leakage rate: 3 points
illustrate:
The three indicators of code coverage, functional coverage and defect detection rate are the most critical and commonly used indicators in software testing. They are directly related to the comprehensiveness and effectiveness of the test, so the highest score of 5 points is given.
Defect density and test case execution rate are also very important progress and quality indicators. If used frequently, 4 points will be given.
The three indicators of defect repair rate, reproduction rate and defect leakage rate are mainly used to measure the quality of the testing and defect management process. They are relatively infrequently used, but they are also important and are given 3 points.
How to effectively improve indicators?
Based on the above indicators, the following measures can be taken to improve the process:
Improve DDP - Increase use case design coverage and focus on testing error-prone functions.
Improve the repair rate - optimize the defect submission and processing process, and strengthen development and testing collaboration.
Improve execution coverage - optimize test plans and prepare test environments and use cases in advance.
Improve efficiency - Reuse existing automated testing assets to reduce duplication of work.
Reduce retest rate - strengthen test review and reduce test loopholes. Optimize test environment management.
Continuous measurement and analysis of these indicators, supplemented by process optimization, can continuously improve the efficiency and effectiveness of software testing work.
Summarize
Test indicators are an important means to evaluate and control test progress and quality. Choosing appropriate indicators is very critical. Different types of indicators have different focus areas, and indicator selection needs to be based on software characteristics and testing purposes. The testing team should pay attention to the collection, analysis and application of indicators to proactively identify problems and improve efficiency. It is very important to continuously improve and optimize the indicator system to make it reliable, measurable and feasible.