Black Box Testing

Imagine you are in the market to buy a used car, so naturally you would test it out. Even though you don’t know anything about its internal mechanics, circuits, or programming, that doesn’t mean you cannot test it.

This is what black box testing is: you are testing it from an end-user perspective.

Let’s understand this in more detail.

Basic Functionality

How would you start testing? Obviously, you would start with basic functionality.

• Input: Turn on the key
• Expected Output: The engine will start
• Test Result: ✓ Pass / ✗ Fail

Now you would look for other functionalities:

• Are the brakes working? Is there any delay or issue?
• Is the suspension working and how smooth is it?
• When you accelerate the car, how smooth is the response?

Software Testing Example: Banking App

Now let’s apply this same concept to a software testing example.

Think about testing a banking app — you don’t need to know about how it’s coded, which algorithms it uses, or which database it is using. You just check if it’s working from a user’s point of view:

• Can you enter the details and login into the app?
• When you process a payment, is it going through?
• Is the information on the page correct?

See, you are testing everything from an end-user perspective. It’s so simple and it works — its focus is on the system working as a whole rather than how it works internally.

Conclusion

Now you know what black box testing is: let’s see how companies use black box testing.