Visualizing Test-Defect Coverage Information to Support Analytical Reasoning and Testing

Abstract

Software testing is an essential activity in all software projects. The key issue in testing is determining the sufficiency of tests and, traditionally this has been done by using the Software Reliability Growth Models (SRGMs). However, SRGMs are not applicable when there are no stabilization phases as required by most software reliability models. Test-Defect Coverage Analytics Model (TDCAM) has been proposed to address this problem. This paper proposes the application of visual analytic techniques as an approach for supporting informed decision making in deciding the sufficiency of tests. Visual analytics research considers interactive visualization as the common platform for combining various computational data analysis techniques to support the analytical reasoning process. We presented four visual representations of TDCAM to demonstrate how analytical models have been applied to indicate the adequacy of tests in relation to sufficient and efficient test coverage. The techniques provide an effective and generally applicable test estimation on the basis of a general trend that higher test coverage correlates with higher probability of detecting more defects.