test design

Articles

Cards and chips at a casino Risk Coverage: A New Currency for Testing

In the era of agile and DevOps, release decisions need to be made rapidly—preferably, even automatically and instantaneously. Test results that focus solely on the number of test cases leave you with a huge blind spot. If you want fast, accurate assessments of the risks associated with promoting the latest release candidate to production, you need a new currency in testing: Risk coverage needs to replace test coverage.

Wolfgang Platz's picture Wolfgang Platz
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
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
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
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
Person writing down rules for software testing in a notebook The Simple Rules of Software Testing

Simple rules are great for guiding us through an overwhelming workload. Sometimes complicated solutions are necessary, but simple rules often outperform complex algorithms, making them more efficient than sophisticated, difficult flows. They can also break down big goals into practical daily guidelines testers can follow to perform more effectively. Let’s see how simple rules can be applied in software testing.

László Szegedi's picture László Szegedi
Person comparing two apples An Automated Approach to Regression Testing

Testing every single thing isn't feasible, so regression testing should be holistic in verification while focused in scope. A good goal is to ensure no regression issue is introduced into a critical business flow. This endeavor can benefit from automation. An automated testing approach specific to reducing regression issues can go a long way toward building a good client relationship and high brand value.

Anubhav Bansal's picture Anubhav Bansal
Person using a screen reader Fitting Accessibility Testing into Agile Development

The concept of accessibility has been around for more than twenty years, yet it’s only recently that more companies have started including it in their development efforts. Developers and testers are recognizing the advantages of incorporating accessibility techniques into their processes. Here are some of these methods specific to agile software development, including a handy checklist.

Albert Gareev's picture Albert Gareev
Person holding magnifying glass up to computer screen to find a bug 6 Ways Testers Can Add Value (Other Than Functional Testing)

Many testers spend their time doing functional testing and don't come out of this cocoon. But software testing is all about discovering quality-related information to assist stakeholders in making informed decisions, and there are multiple ways to discover information in addition to functional testing. Here are six actions that will help you add more value to your projects.

Ajay Balamurugadas's picture Ajay Balamurugadas

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