Test Design

Articles

Dozens of workshop tools laid out in an orderly fashion Transforming a Test Automation Maintenance Nightmare into Success

Best practices for test automation emphasize reliability, portability, reusability, readability, maintainability, and more. But how can your existing automated test suite adopt these qualities? Should you address these issues with your current tests, or create an entirely new set of tests? Here are some questions that will help you determine if your test automation maintenance program is operating as it should be.

Vinay Shah's picture Vinay Shah
Person holding sparkler with New Year's fireworks in the background Top 10 StickyMinds Articles of 2019

Teams everywhere are looking to speed up testing without sacrificing quality, so once again, some of the top articles last year were about continuous integration, machine learning, and—of course—how to best implement and use test automation. But readers were also interested in what they shouldn't be doing, with two high-ranking articles about test practices we should stop and a tool you may be misusing.

Beth Romanik's picture Beth Romanik
Computer showing data analysis Rookie Mistakes in Data Analytics

It's easy to make simple mistakes in data analysis. But these little mistakes can result in rework, errors, and—in the worst case—incorrect conclusions that lead you down the wrong path. Making small process changes can help you steer clear of these mistakes and end up having a real impact, both in the amount of time you spend and in your results. Here are some tips for avoiding rookie mistakes in data analytics.

Nels Hoenig's picture Nels Hoenig
Person playing chess Separating Automation Tooling from Automation Strategy

When people do not have good luck with automation, it is hardly ever because of the tool being used, but almost always because of the wrong automation strategy, wrong expectations, and wrong adoption of automation. Automation tools only answer the “how” of automation, while having an automation strategy gives answers to who, where, when, what, and why. Here's why it's so important to have a test automation strategy.

Akash Bhatia's picture Akash Bhatia
Computer screen showing web optimization audit metrics An Introduction to Web Optimization Testing

When testing websites, most software testers check the functionality and the UI of the page. But webpage optimization is another area that should get consideration. There are a variety of factors, such as relevance and readability, that search engines consider in webpages before assigning a position in search results, and testers can help positively influence this ranking by increasing site speed and removing blockers to usability.

Gimhani Upekshika's picture Gimhani Upekshika
Individual blocks stacked up JUnit vs. TestNG: Choosing a Framework for Unit Testing

There are multiple frameworks available for unit testing, and for any type of programming language. For Java developers, JUnit and TestNG are the most widely used. These frameworks are siblings and have the same test roots, and the debate over which is better is complex. Let’s look at how these two testing frameworks are different from each other, and which framework is better suited for your unit testing.

Junaid Ahmed's picture Junaid Ahmed
Secure padlock Embedding Security in a DevOps World

Faster DevOps processes also create new challenges. It was difficult enough to add security into a traditional waterfall software development lifecycle with monthly or quarterly releases, but now software updates are released several times a day! What can developers do to build and maintain more secure applications? Here are some ways to encourage better security practices throughout the DevOps lifecycle.

Alex Humphrey's picture Alex Humphrey
Tester holding up a pair of eyeglasses Testing What You Can’t See: Risk Blindness in Coverage Models

The way we think about what necessitates test coverage being “complete” influences how we test and the cases we create. After all, you wouldn't design tests for situations that don't occur to you—and you can't test what you can't see. It's time to take off the blinders. Here's how you can find where the bugs in your products are occurring, and then adjust your strategy to pinpoint them.

Matt Heusser's picture Matt Heusser
Two paths going through the woods Taking the Negativity out of Negative Testing

Everyone on the software team has the same goal of delivering the best product they can, so letting testers discover bugs is always good—the more bugs found, the better! But misconceptions often lead to testers getting the bad rap of "breaking" the software. It's a tester's job to think like a user. Developers and stakeholders might call that negative testing, but the result is a better product, and that’s all positive. Let's change the way we talk about testing.

Jessica Lavoie's picture Jessica Lavoie
Close-up of computer keyboard Testing AI Systems: Not as Different as You’d Think

AI-based tools have transformed from a vague, futuristic vision into actual products that are used to make real-life decisions. Still, for most people, the inner workings of deep-learning systems remain a mystery. If you don’t know what exactly is going on while the input data is fed through layer after layer of a neural network, how are you supposed to test the validity of the output? It’s not magic; it’s just testing.

Kerstin Kohout's picture Kerstin Kohout

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