For a software system, arguably the paramount concern is ensuring its flawless and non-harmful performance rather than merely its existence. Software testers play a critical role in achieving this goal, but the testing landscape is rich with diverse schools of thought, methodologies, tools, and techniques. Pivotal questions for testers are as follows: Should your emphasis be on manual testing or automation? Should you primarily be creating test scripts? And what kinds of automated tests are likely to provide value to your specific application?

This course provides an overview of the array of testing techniques and approaches available to testers, but more importantly, how to consider their relative strengths and weaknesses to create a strategy for testing that selects from those approaches to fit a specific need.