Testing of "Search" functionality

Requirement:  Client wants a “Search” feature for his retail website on which any user can search the items which are available in the website.

 Is this requirement sufficient to start testing?No, this requirement statement doesn't give answers of many questions so clarification is required for those unanswered questions before starting testing.

Requirement Clarification:-

Following questions can be asked for the clarification of the "Search" functionality:-

-On which pages this search feature will be available?

-“Categories” and “Subcategories”  fields will be present  along with “Search” field  for search in specific categories? (Categories should be  based on the items available in the website like –“Sport items”, “Entertainment”. ”Electronics” etc.)

-Search within functionality like “Search in Title”, “Search in price”, ”Search  in all content”  etc. will be present?

-Wild card search  will be present or not?

-Search results  will be based on complete string or will be based on each word of the string?

-Autosuggest will be available in search field?

-UI of search result  page: How we will show the items on search results page? What details will be displayed   in search result page? Image of item will be displayed or not? Etc..

-What will be the users actions on “Search Result” page?

-What will happen when  entered search string matches more than one item available in the system? In which sorting order results will be displayed?

-What will happen if search  string doesn’t matches any items?

-If more results will be present then pagination will be present or Infinite scrolling will be present?

-Will it be same for logged in user and for non logged in user?

-If user does spelling mistake in that case closely matching results will be displayed or not?

-In the search field will there be any maximum character limit ?

Above are the some common questions which any one can ask for getting the more detailed requirements. After getting the clarifications, testing should be done based on the clarifications.

Based  on the clarifications many test cases will be possible for testing this “Search” functionality  but there are some common test cases which should be tested in search field .But before start testing   we need to prepare some test data:

Test data preparation:

Note down all the categories of items which are available in the websites. After that for each categories note down the title of  following items:

-Items having one word in title

-Items having multiple  words in title.

-Items having special characters in title.(especially <>,(),{},[],’ ‘,” ”,&)

-Items having space after one character

-Items having very long title.(more than max character)

-Items starting with different characters and different alphabets.

Test cases for Search functionality:-

Field validation test cases-

      -Without entering anything click on Search button.

-Click in the search field and press Enter key.

-Enter any  one character and click on Search button/press Enter key .

-Enter only special characters and click on Search button.

-Enter  only numbers and click on Search button

-Enter alphanumeric characters and click on Search button

-Enter  alphanumeric characters and special characters and click on search button.

-Enter string more than the max char limit of the field.

-Enter string with spaces(before string , after string  and in between) and verify the results.

Common Functional Test cases for search field:

-Enter the value in Search field which will give only one result and verify the UI of the page

-Enter the value in search field which will not give any results and Verify the UI.

-Enter First / middle/ last  word of any title and verify the search results

-For each item category -Enter the value in search field based on the above prepared “Test Data” and verify the search results. Verify this on all pages where Search functionality is available(Try to test different combination of test data in different pages).

-For each category- Enter the value in search field which will give multiple results :

-verify the UI and pagination.

-Verify sorting order of search results.

-validate the search results and no. of Search results from the DB

- For each category-Add new item in the system and after that search the same item through the Search field.

- For each category-Update title of any existing  item  and after that search updated item through the Search field with old and new title.

- For each category-Remove any existing  item from the system and after that search same item through the Search field.

-Verify the above test cases for logged In and not logged in user.

-Verify that users are able to search public items only. They should not be able to search those items /details which are private.

 -Verify the Browser compatibility for the search functionality

Above are the some common test cases for search functionality.Many other test cases will also possible based on the requirements.

These are the few inputs from my side based on my experience and if you have any other inputs on this then please share your inputs in the comments.