What is interface testing in software testing?

Overview

Software testing is an essential part of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) to ensure the quality of a software product. Out of several software testing techniques employed, we will discuss the interface testing technique.

Definition

Interface testing verifies the communication between two software systems. Usually, this can be between:

  • The web server and the application server.
  • The application server and the database server.

The following diagram provides a bit more clarity:

Example

Consider the architecture in the above diagram. Interface testing ensures the following:

  • The API endpoints at both ends are integrated properly.
  • Errors are communicated properly.
  • If the communication between the endpoints is reset, then the outcome is still correct.

The need for interface testing

Interface testing is needed for the following reasons:

  • The primary reason is to ensure that the users don’t encounter any issues while using the software.
  • Interface testing also aids in the identification of the regions of software most utilized by the users in an effort to validate their user-friendliness.
  • To verify whether or not the communication is secure between the end systems.
  • To verify that the software handles network failures.
  • To validate that error handling is correctly implemented in the software.

Types of interface testing

Interface testing is comprised of several different tests, summarized in the table below:

Test Description
Unit Test Every part of the program is tested to make sure that the program functions properly as a whole.
Functional Test In this test, it is made sure that every functional requirement listed in the documentation of the software product is correctly implemented and gets executed.
Security Test Verifies that the security protocols used several testing techniques (e.g., penetration tests, encryption, access control tests).
Load Test In this test, the functional test cases from the functional test are used to gauge the performance of the system on a specified load.
Runtime Error Detection Test This test makes sure that errors that only occur at runtime are resolved (e.g., race condition, resource leak, etc.).
Workflow Test This test makes sure that the business process workflow conforms to what is implemented by the software.

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