Automation

Articles

Man looking at mountains through binoculars The Art of Exploratory Testing

Some people assume that exploratory testing is a task with low-effort thinking, where the tester simply goes through the application and sees what comes up. While we shouldn't discount doing just that, because sometimes it does reveal some interesting bugs, there are techniques and patterns that testers can follow when exploring an application. Let's look at a two-step process to use in exploratory testing.

Sanjugtha Shoba's picture Sanjugtha Shoba
A Primer on Continuous Testing

Continuous testing shortens feedback loops through automated testing that occurs throughout the development lifecycle—hence "continuous." Testing and QA become the responsibility of everyone working on the software, not just testers. Let's look at some proven practices from organizations that have used continuous testing effectively to realize tangible benefits.

Vasudevan Swaminathan's picture Vasudevan Swaminathan
Colorful gears 5 Reasons Enterprise Test Automation Is So Challenging

Most organizations understand that test automation is essential for modern application delivery processes. They’re just not sure how to make it a reality in an enterprise environment without exorbitant overhead and massive disruption. Enterprise organizations typically achieve small victories, but the process ultimately decays due to challenges in five main areas. Understanding these challenges will help us overcome them.

Wolfgang Platz's picture Wolfgang Platz
Automation Software Is Production Software

When it comes to testing, there tends to be a differentiation between “production software” and everything else. But our ideas and principles about testing software are true for all software, not merely the code that will run in front of customers or the APIs that make things happen. Any software built for a purpose needs to be tested against that purpose, including the software running our test automation.

Peter Walen's picture Peter Walen
Computer showing fire on the screen Strengthening System Resilience with Chaos Engineering

Testing continuous technological change can seem like chaos. There are many challenges that need to be managed, such as unavailability of power, excessive temperature, incorrect configuration, unexpected behavior of services, network downtime, and processing slowdown in production. By deliberately engineering chaos, we’ll be able to discover many of our systems’ weaknesses before our users do.

Smartphone showing the word "ERROR" False Errors in Test Tooling

Traditional GUI automation is linear; it follows a set of steps. The first time you run it, it can't add any value, as the feature isn't done until the automation runs. Once test automation runs a second time, it effectively becomes change detection. This leads to a large number of "failures" that are not actually failures. Whether they are false positives or false negatives, we need a way to fix the automation tooling.

Matthew Heusser's picture Matthew Heusser
Breaking through a fence to see cars speeding on a road Enterprise Test Automation: 4 Ways to Break Through the Top Barriers

How can mature companies with complex systems achieve the level of test automation that modern delivery schedules and processes demand? There are four strategies that have helped many organizations finally break through the test automation barrier: Simplify automation across the technology stack, end the test maintenance nightmare, shift to API testing, and choose the right tools for your needs.

Wolfgang Platz's picture Wolfgang Platz
Person holding a dollar bill The Hidden Costs of Automation

While automation can help you save time and money in your testing activities, there are a few hidden costs that many teams overlook. Aspects that don't have a price tag initially—such as what it will take to learn, adopt, and maintain a new automation tool—will end up costing you in the long run. Think through these considerations and answer some questions before jumping into your automation initiative.

Ajay Balamurugadas's picture Ajay Balamurugadas
Coins falling Where Your Money Is Lost in Testing

Companies that want to reduce testing costs usually try working with fewer people, or even cutting back on the amount of testing done. But with those approaches, quality usually suffers. Releasing a critical bug and suffering the subsequent pain usually costs multiple times what testing would. There are better ways to save money, and it can be done just by being smarter about our test cases and their structure.

Maximilian Bauer's picture Maximilian Bauer
Man training a dog to sit How Humans and Bots Can Work Together to Test Software

We’ve all heard about AI for software testing from some seriously smart people, but there has been a lot of confusion about the idea. This article tackles some of the questions you might be asking: Do I need to be a genius to use AI for software testing? Is AI going to replace me as a tester? Where does AI fit into my testing strategy? With a simple analogy of training a dog, learn how AI fits into testing.

Janna Loeffler's picture Janna Loeffler

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