Positive testing is employed to make sure that the application or system does what it is supposed to do. Generally done in tandem with negative testing, positive testing helps to verify that helpful error messages appear when they should, that functions work as expected, and that correct input is accepted by the system. Positive testing generally tries to verify that a system does what it is supposed to do. By contrast, negative testing verifies that the system does not do what it’s not supposed to do. For example, if an application is supposed to accept x, y, and z values, a negative test would attempt to input a, b, and c values in an attempt to force an error condition while a positive test would verify that the system does in fact accept the x, y, and z values. In the most basic sense, positive testing utilizes all possible valid inputs to verify they are accepted per the requirements.

Boundary testing is the most common form of positive testing. The system should handle the boundary conditions, but they are one of the more common areas for errors. Most often, it’s the data right on the edge that’s often mistaken for invalid. Positive testing must be performed to validate that all possible forms of valid data are accepted by the system. Users should be able to enter anything they want within the valid input range.

Both positive and negative testing are generally done during functional testing and QA Mentor’s Testing Execution On-Demand Service and Manual Test Design and Execution Service has a rotating team of quality assurance professionals who are ready to help you with this kind of testing. We will work with your team to go over requirements, build a comprehensive test plan, design thorough test cases, execute the tests, and log defects.