An engineering approach to Software Testing and Test Automation

Last week Shilpa Venkateshwaran published on IT Knowledge Exchange my replies to the offline interview questions. Access online: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 Access offline: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 ...

Whether it’s an all-round automation tool, like TestComplete, or a lightweight Session-Based Exploratory Testing assistant, like RapidReporter, generating good test reports is a challenging task. Obviously, hand-crafted reports would be much better, and live communication is an ideal. Though quite often testers have to report in writing and/or remotely. And if testing is conducted with assistance of a [...] ...

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Once a year I do something with my blog. Collate, update, migrate, clean-up, migrate, collate, … About 12 months ago I registered a domain name and migrated my blog from the free WordPress hosting. I purchased a lightweight theme, added some widgets, put it all together, and even done some fixing on my own. The [...] ...

Data Generation On-the-Fly A Fly in the Ointment Keyboard Shortcuts   Area Highlighter Trick ...

Test Design with Mind Maps Usability Study: Beliefs Are More Important Than Requirements Automation Puzzles   Folder Structure Template Document (XMind Mindmap)   Rapid Reporter, exploratory notetaking tool ...

Now I’m done with the series: GUI Recognition with TestComplete 3 Categories, 10 articles, 8 code examples. Overview of object recognition properties. Run-time GUI recognition methods. Routine operations with Web Browser window. Code examples and detailed explanations. Note: more TestComplete content to come next year. ...

“Explore the context of the test project, your givens, and your mission” Context-Free Questions for Testing, Michael Bolton, DevelopSense Weekend Testing Americas (WTA) session #3 was planned and facilitated by Michael Larsen. This time we got something special. The objective Produce either a list or a mind map of the features of Rapid Reporter with [...] ...

Excel-based test-reports-2 Don’t blame VBScript Total Validator Be aware of Bounded Awareness ...

“Testing is a process of exploration, discovery, investigation, learning, and analysis with the goal of gathering information about risks, vulnerabilities, and threats to the value of the product.”  Michael Bolton, DevelopSense What this is about? Read about Weekend Testing November, 2010: Weekend Testing is coming to the Western Hemisphere November, 13, 2010: Let’s Dance!   [...] ...

With this post I continue my examples on Bounded Awareness in software testing. But, again, first I ask you to read the following article: “Multi-tasking makes you stupid”. If you didn’t, here’s the summary. A growing body of scientific research shows one of the jugglers’ favorite time-saving techniques, multitasking, can actually make you less efficient [...] ...

Last week I asked QuickTestingTips readers to share examples of Bounded Awareness they observed in their work, and here I’m with my stories. Let’s start with this video. You see two teams of people playing basketball. While you watch the video, count number of passes made by the each team. ..Now, after you’re done, list what [...] ...

I’m very glad that the testing challenge I set went to a second round. I prompt my readers now to read through the post in Darren McMillan’s blog. Please pay special attention to Results and Debriefing sections. I think those are great examples of facilitation to learn from. I also would like to share what I [...] ...

Spoon Browser Sandbox 18 automation refactoring heuristics with code examples Surplus is an asset Keep Moving Excel-based test-reports-1 ...

Time Management – Mind Map Printer-friendly XML and XSL reference cards IP Address Tools   Are you still using screenshots? ...

I’ve been reviewing my investigation and code example posts, and realized that some of them are numerous enough to be grouped together as step-by-step tutorials. Here are the first ones. Active Directory – Sample Scripts   FileSystemObject – Working with Files and Folders   More tutorials will come this year! ...

If I would have to choose to keep only one of my answers on StackOverflow, I’d choose this one.  Probably, not necessary explanation On a technical side, what is the greatest test automation challenge? It’s not programming, and not even learning about tool’s object model or application’s API. But it’s two-fold. 1. Automated test design [...] ...

Mind mapping is an extremely useful analysis and design tool. Though distinguish it with other roles, like presentation. Don’t waste your creativity, and don’t try to make a mind map fancy during brainstorming phase. Focus on the problem you solve. See also On importance of test log Telling testing story ...

Get yourself out of Inbox Crash test your application   Unlearning for testers   SQL Injection cartoon and walkthrough ...

Bring up your Desktop in double-click! Test your wetware GUI Step Automation Heuristic (Mindmapped)   Ten 20 Years Old Usability Heuristics   Visualize XML then blink test   Close process in a second ...