Software Testing, 4th Edition

Chapter 14

System Testing

Of the three levels of testing, the system level is closest to everyday experience. We test many things: a used car before we buy it, an online network service before we subscribe, and so on. A common pattern in these familiar forms is that we evaluate a product in terms of our expectations—not with respect to a specification or a standard. Consequently, the goal is not to find faults but to demonstrate correct behavior. Because of this, we tend to approach system testing from a specification-based standpoint instead of from a code-based one. Because it is so intuitively familiar, system testing in practice tends to be less formal than it might be, and this is compounded by the reduced testing interval that usually remains ...