Testing any new or updated system, application, website or database is a very important step within the development cycle of a product. The aim is to remove any bugs and errors before it is delivered to the end user.

If bugs still exist within the system after it has been released, users will become frustrated when they cannot perform their tasks. It may not take long before comments are added to social media and the resulting costs, both in terms of the time required to correct the problems and the developer's reputation, can be very big.

When testing our web development projects we will focus on:

• Integrative (integration) testing.
• Usability testing.
• Final testing.
• End user testing.

Even if we've performed all of our testing there are sometimes unforeseen or unexpected errors with web development projects. Such as:

• Web sites may fail to load due to Denial of Service (DOS or DDOS) attacks
• Updates to servers or server software can cause existing projects to stop working
• The end user receives a 404 error (page not found) after clicking a link to a page because it has been moved or deleted
• External files that the site requires to run become unavailable.

Integrative Testing

Integrative testing ensures that all individually tested components of a website such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript all work well together in order to produce a fit for purpose website. If an element needs to be tested but is not yet finished, developers may use stubs and drivers to check its operation.

As websites get bigger and more complex, including the inclusion of web applications, software, and databases, fully testing everything to ensure they all work together is even more important. You could spend a lot of time on the style of web pages, but it won’t help your visitors if the content is not displayed from a database.

An integrative test plan for web design will identify:

• The original web site specification
• Any wireframe designs or prototypes (low and high fidelity) for the website