Target Audience: This course is intended for project managers and QA professionals who are involved with website development or re-development efforts. Developers will also benefit from the course's emphasis on how testing activities can be injected throughout the project life cycle and thus help them to avoid "development scrap and rework".

Description:
Websites have been called "the most valuable real estate in the world." Generating millions (and soon billions) in sales every day, the World Wide Web has become an instrumental component in the World Wide Economy. But like other types of IT projects, website projects face a host of hazards. Unrealistic expectations, unplanned development and shortened schedules can lead to sites riddled with defects. Worse, testing activities that can prevent these kinds of defects are often scaled back or even omitted. Even when a website is successfully deployed, the hazards don't end. As more and more users access the site over time, it's performance may degrade.

Perhaps the biggest issue in testing the quality of a website is in the actual scheduling of the test activities themselves. Grouping all or most of the testing tasks near the end of a project's development lifecycle will all but ensure that the finished site will not work properly and not meet user requirements. And because many websites are "open to the public", website failures can be painfully embarrassing for organizations.

To help prevent website project failures, organizations need to integrate testing activities throughout the website's lifecycle.

Objective:
Defining a broad website testing strategy is the key to addressing these challenges. Organizations need to establish testing procedures not only towards the end of a website development project, but in the requirements, design, and deployment phases as well. In addition, a procedure for testing the website's performance over time needs to be considered.

By implementing such a strategy in your organization, you will ensure the following:

• Website requirements and user expectations will be realistic
• Shortened schedules will not have a disproportionate effect on testing activities
• Post-production performance will be monitored
• Website project risks and costly errors are substantially reduced
• High-quality web pages will be created by the organization

The SMS Website Testing Strategies Workshop offers an overview of testing principles and processes. It also provides practical tips for ensuring the quality of your organization's website. The workshop provides the necessary background to establish a testing strategy that has touch-points in all phases of a project's lifecycle, from requirements definition to deployment and beyond.

Prerequisites: Familiarity with website development