test design

It simply isn’t feasible to test every possible user scenario with a new app, and the testers who already know how the app should perform can't approach using it the same way as someone unfamiliar with the process. Enter crowdsourced testing, where you gather a customizable pool of people from outside your organization to test your apps for defects and usability.

Testing professionals who are learning about agile often want to know how they can provide traceability among automated tests, features, and bugs and report on their testing progress. Here, Lisa Crispin gives an example of how her previous team worked together to integrate testing with coding and helped everyone see testing progress at a glance.

In a business setting, software testers have a great challenge: to articulate how they support the business lines. One way to approach this is by addressing the business decisions—and there are plenty around. Use them to drive your testing activities and increase the business decisions being covered by testing.

There are many diverse ideas about what being a tester means in agile development environments. This leads to confusion between how agile testers and agile QA “fit” into agile teams and what the QA tester responsibilities are. John Stevenson explains why there appears to be some fear and a little distrust of agile environments among some testers, then offers suggestions for dealing with their confusion.