CAST 2015

All testers know to derive functional tests from the available requirements. But the key problems in mobile app testing is factoring in mobile devices integrated features like orientation, location tracking, notifications and demanding and impatient mobile phone users.

Join Dhanasekar Subramaniam to discover how to create better test coverage models using mind maps for apps build on iOS and Android. Explore to design tests using LONG FUN CUP test model at the UI level to identify issues beyond the usual functional and non-functional testing. Even if a smartphone app has a sleek UI, users will uninstall the app if it drains their battery, crashes frequently or wastes the user’s data plan. Learn how to design mobile tests and what tools he uses to uncover issues hidden under mobile UI.

Dhanasekar will demonstrate and consult the audience on providing better test coverage for mobile apps using mind maps, do session based testing, simplify a complex looking testing problem and ensure no wandering and accountable mission based mobile app testing success.

A passion for the truth is essential for a tester. But the truths we uncover in the exercise of our craft can be bad news to our co-workers or to people who hold more power in the hierarchy than we do.

Testers are paid to deliver unwelcome messages. Too often, the interaction doesn’t go as well as we’d like and we have to deal with adverse reactions ranging from merely disbelieving to downright hostile.

Delivering bad news well takes courage and skill, as does dealing with many of the recipient’s reactions. For most people, the ability to do these things at all—let alone well—does not come easily.

In this tutorial, we will practice delivering difficult messages and addressing the fallout, building relevant skills and knowledge along the way. We will explore the factors that can inhibit us in delivering a message, as well as those that might influence a recipient’s reactions.

Topics we’ll cover include:

• Common pitfalls in delivering difficult messages, and how to avoid them
• Questions to ask and things to do before we speak
• Strategies, models and techniques that can help us understand and deal with difficult conversations successfully

 Delivering unwelcome news isn’t fun, but we can have fun exploring and practicing how to do it. This tutorial will consist primarily of experiential exercises and debriefs. We will practice with real situations that have happened for real testers, including past or current problems brought by participants.

Through years of experience you have mastered testing in your domain. But are important bugs still slipping by? Can you transfer your skills to new applications? Why can’t others get the job done? Test fundamentals can help.

Rob Sabourin breaks testing fundamentals into five areas, philosophy, scientific method, problem solving, math and rhetoric. Test philosophy improves purposeful testing revealing truths about what testing can and cannot do. Scientific method provides frameworks to advance knowledge confirming or refute conjectures while designing great test experiments. Many problem solving strategies exist based on modeling knowledge and the unknown. Math (discrete, logic, combinations and probability) improves test design and result interpretation. Rhetoric skills improve tester’s communication, argumentation and persuasion.

Applying testing fundamentals focuses testing, closes gaps, eliminates waste and helps you do the right things well. Rob teaches you “how to know about what to test” and “what to know about how to test”.

Is testing really keeping up with the advances of software development? Are our testing approaches evolving as quickly as the new technologies, or are we being left behind, using the same methods and techniques as we did a decade ago?

Testing needs to get more innovative, find new ways to test more efficiently and effectively, and to better adapt to each unique context. The first step is to realize that testing is not about finding answers, but about asking questions. Nobel laureate Dr. Michael Smith advocated “follow-your-nose research” in his field, biotechnology; he was willing to pursue new ideas even if it meant that he had to learn new methods or technologies. Similarly testers should do “follow-your nose testing”, exploring new approaches and questioning old habits.

This tutorial suggests an approach for test planning that encourages innovation and overcomes barriers to quality. Through a cogent discussion of ideas around brainstorming, collaboration and creativity, you are provided with new insights that can help you revolutionize the test industry! Working in smaller groups we explore different examples of test challenges we have experienced ourselves, covering topics ranging from tools and environments to methodologies and teams. Using our new tools for encouraging innovation through collaboration, we try to come up with revolutionary suggestions for how to address these challenges. Focusing on asking the right questions, we might also come up with a few answers.

Takeaways

• A presentation of ideas about why testing needs to get more innovative
• Why classic brainstorming doesn’t work, and how to build creative, innovative teams
• Tools to re-invent testing practices
• An understanding of what “follow-your-nose testing” is, and how to apply it on any software development project