Negative Testing

Negative Testing is a type of software testing where the application is intentionally subjected to invalid, unexpected, or incorrect inputs or conditions to ensure that it behaves correctly under failure scenarios. The goal of negative testing is to identify how the software handles errors, edge cases, and unexpected situations without crashing or producing incorrect results.

Key components of negative testing include:

• Invalid Inputs: Testing the system with invalid data, such as incorrect values in form fields, special characters, or empty inputs, to verify that the system gracefully handles errors.
• Boundary Testing: Providing inputs at the boundaries of acceptable ranges (e.g., the maximum or minimum allowed values) to ensure the system responds appropriately to limits.
• Error Handling: Verifying that the system displays appropriate error messages, prompts, or warnings when incorrect actions are performed, and that it doesn’t crash or misbehave.
• System Robustness: Ensuring that the software can maintain stability and security when exposed to invalid or malicious inputs, such as SQL injections or cross-site scripting (XSS).
• Usability Issues: Checking how the application handles unexpected user behavior, such as pressing the "back" button while a form is being submitted or navigating to broken links.
• Resource Management: Testing how the system behaves when it runs out of resources (e.g., memory, bandwidth) or exceeds capacity.

Negative testing helps ensure that the software is robust, secure, and resilient, offering a good user experience even in cases of failure. It is an important part of quality assurance, aiming to reduce the risk of software crashing or producing incorrect results in unexpected conditions.