QA Glossary
Specialized Testing glossary.
33 specialized testing terms every QA engineer and SDET should know, each defined with a real-world example and an interview tip.
Browse the full QA glossaryContract TestingContract testing is a technique that verifies that two services (a consumer and a provider) can communicate correctly by testing each side independently against a shared contract that defines the expected request and response structure.
Chaos EngineeringChaos engineering is the discipline of deliberately injecting controlled failures into a system in production or pre-production to proactively discover weaknesses before they cause unplanned outages.
Performance BudgetA performance budget is a set of measurable limits on web performance metrics (such as page load time, bundle size, or Core Web Vitals) that a team commits to not exceeding, enforced through automated checks.
Accessibility TestingAccessibility testing is the practice of evaluating software to ensure it is usable by people with disabilities, including visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments, typically measured against WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards.
Visual Regression TestingVisual regression testing is the practice of capturing screenshots or visual snapshots of UI components or pages and comparing them against approved baselines to detect unintended visual changes.
API TestingAPI testing is the practice of verifying that application programming interfaces work correctly by sending requests directly to endpoints and validating responses for functionality, reliability, performance, and security.
Load TestingLoad testing is the practice of simulating expected or peak user traffic against a system to verify that it meets performance requirements (response time, throughput, error rate) under realistic load conditions.
Shadow TestingShadow testing is the practice of routing real production traffic to both the existing system and a new version simultaneously, comparing their outputs without the new version affecting the user experience.
Observability TestingObservability testing is the practice of verifying that a system produces sufficient, accurate, and actionable telemetry (logs, metrics, and traces) to enable engineers to understand its internal state and diagnose problems in production.
Database TestingDatabase testing is the practice of verifying that data stored in databases is accurate, consistent, and complete, checking schema structure, data integrity constraints, CRUD operations, stored procedures, and migration scripts.
Cross-Browser TestingCross-browser testing is the practice of verifying that a web application works correctly and looks consistent across different browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge), browser versions, and operating systems.
Stress TestingStress testing pushes a system beyond its expected capacity to find its breaking point and observe how it fails and recovers under extreme load.
Service VirtualizationService virtualization is the practice of simulating the behavior of real but unavailable, costly, or hard-to-configure dependencies (APIs, third parties, mainframes) so teams can develop and test against them on demand.
Compatibility TestingCompatibility testing verifies that software behaves correctly across different environments, browsers, operating systems, devices, screen sizes, and sometimes networks or hardware, rather than only on the developer's setup.
Fuzz TestingFuzz testing (fuzzing) is an automated technique that feeds large volumes of malformed, unexpected, or random input to a program to find crashes, hangs, memory errors, and security vulnerabilities.
Usability TestingUsability testing evaluates how easily real users can complete tasks with a product, focusing on the experience, clarity, efficiency, and satisfaction, rather than on whether the software is functionally correct.
Localization TestingLocalization testing (L10n) verifies that software has been correctly adapted for a specific language, region, and culture, translations, formats, layout, and locale-specific behavior, so it feels native to that market.
Recovery TestingRecovery testing deliberately forces a system to fail, crashes, network loss, power or service outages, and verifies that it recovers gracefully: restoring state, resuming operations, and not losing or corrupting data.
Soak TestingSoak testing (also called endurance or longevity testing) runs a system under a sustained, typical load for an extended period, hours or days, to surface problems that only appear over time, such as memory leaks, resource exhaustion, and gradual performance degradation.
Spike TestingSpike testing subjects a system to a sudden, sharp increase (and often decrease) in load over a very short time, to verify it handles abrupt traffic surges without failing and recovers gracefully afterward.
Penetration TestingPenetration testing (pentesting) is an authorized, simulated attack on a system performed to find and exploit security vulnerabilities the way a real attacker would, demonstrating actual impact rather than just listing potential weaknesses.
Internationalization TestingInternationalization (i18n) testing verifies that software is designed and built to support multiple languages, regions, and cultural conventions, checking that the architecture can handle different character sets, formats, and text directions, without yet adapting to any specific locale.
Scalability TestingScalability testing measures how effectively a system handles increasing load and how well its performance and capacity grow when resources are added (scaling up or out), identifying the point at which it stops scaling efficiently.
Volume TestingVolume testing (sometimes called flood testing) verifies how a system behaves when it processes or stores large volumes of data, checking that performance, stability, and correctness hold as the data set grows very large, independent of how many concurrent users there are.
Concurrency TestingConcurrency testing verifies that an application behaves correctly when multiple users, threads, or processes access shared resources at the same time, deliberately exercising simultaneous operations to expose race conditions, deadlocks, and data-corruption bugs.
Reliability TestingReliability testing verifies that a system performs its required functions correctly over an extended period and under expected conditions without failing, measuring how consistently and dependably it operates rather than just whether it works once.
Interoperability TestingInteroperability testing verifies that a system can exchange data and work correctly together with other systems, devices, platforms, or software, confirming that integrations function across boundaries and conform to shared standards or protocols.
Conformance TestingConformance testing (compliance testing) verifies that a product, system, or implementation adheres to a defined standard, specification, or regulation, confirming it follows the prescribed rules so it will interoperate and be accepted where that standard is required.
Portability TestingPortability testing evaluates how easily software can be transferred from one environment, platform, or configuration to another, assessing whether it can be adapted, installed, and run correctly in new settings without excessive effort.
Baseline TestingBaseline testing establishes a reference set of results, a baseline, that captures the system's current accepted behavior or performance, so that future test runs can be compared against it to detect regressions or unexpected changes.
WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is the internationally recognized standard, published by the W3C, that defines how to make web content accessible to people with disabilities, organized around four principles and three conformance levels (A, AA, AAA).
ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications)ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications), or WAI-ARIA, is a set of HTML attributes, roles, states, and properties that convey the meaning and state of dynamic, custom web components to assistive technologies like screen readers when native HTML semantics are not enough.
Bug Bounty ProgramA bug bounty program is an initiative where an organization invites external security researchers to find and responsibly report security vulnerabilities in its systems in exchange for recognition and monetary rewards (bounties) scaled to the severity of what they find.
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