What is Functional Testing?

Functional testing is a type of software testing where the basic functionalities of

an application are tested against a predetermined set of specifications. Using
Black Box Testing techniques, functional tests measure whether a given input
returns the desired output, regardless of any other details.

Unit Testing
Unit testing breaks down the desired outcome into individual units, allowing you to
test whether a small number of inputs (sometimes just one) produce the desired
output.

Smoke Testing
Smoke testing is done to verify that the most critical parts of the application
work as intended. It’s a first pass through the testing process, and is not
intended to be exhaustive. Smoke tests ensure that the application is operational
on a basic level.

Sanity Testing
Sanity testing is in some ways a cousin to smoke testing, as it is also intended to
verify basic functionality and potentially avoid detailed testing of broken
software.

Integration Testing
Integration testing determines whether combinations of individual software modules
function properly together. Individual modules may already have passed independent
tests, but when they are dependent on other modules to operate successfully, this
kind of testing is necessary to ensure that all parts work together as expected.

Regression Testing
Regression testing makes sure that the addition of new code does not break existing
functionalities. In other words, did your new code cause the quality of your
application to “regress” or go backwards? Regression tests target the changes that
were made and ensure the whole application continues to remain stable and function
as expected.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)/Beta Testing

Usability testing involves exposing your application to a limited group of real
users in a production environment. The feedback from these live users – who have no
prior experience with the application and may discover critical bugs that were
unknown to internal teams – is used to make further changes to the application
before a full launch.

UI/UX Testing
UI/UX testing evaluates the graphical user interface of the application. The
performance of UI components such as menus, buttons, text fields and more are
verified to ensure that the user experience is ideal for the application’s users.
UI/UX testing is also known as visual testing and can be manual or automated.

Other classifications of functional testing include black box testing, white box
testing, component testing, API testing, system testing and production testing.

How to Perform Functional Testing

The essence of a functional test involves three steps:

Determine the desired test input values

Execute the tests
Evaluate the resulting test output values
Essentially, when you executed a task with input (e.g.: enter an email address into
a text field and click submit), did your application generate the expected output
(e.g.: user is subscribed and thank you page is displayed)?

https://applitools.com/blog/functional-testing-guide/#:~:text=Functional%20testing
%20is%20a%20type,regardless%20of%20any%20other%20details.

We can understand this further with a quick example.

https://www.lambdatest.com/learning-hub/playwright-visual-regression-testing