Saturday, August 22, 2015

Patterns in Test Automation

I spoke in vodQA Hyderabad on Sat, 22nd August 2015 about Patterns in Test Automation - Frameworks, Data & Locators.

The slides are available on SlideShare:


The video is available on YouTube:



Abstract

Building a Test Automation Framework is easy - there are so many resources / guides / blogs / etc. available to help you get started and help solve the issues you get along the journey.

However, building a "good" Test Automation Framework is not very easy. There are a lot of principles and practices you need to use, in the right context, with a good set of skills required to make the Test Automation Framework maintainable, scalable and reusable.

Design Patterns play a big role in helping achieve this goal of building a good and robust framework.

In this talk, we will talk about, and see examples of various types of patterns you can use for:

  • Build your Test Automation Framework
  • Test Data Management
  • Locators / IDs (for finding / interacting with elements in the browser / app)
Using these patterns you will be able to build a good framework, that will help keep your tests running fast, and reliably in your CI / CD setup!

Learning outcome


  • Patterns for building Test Automation Framework
  • Patterns for Test Data Management, with pros and cons of each
  • Patterns for managing locators / IDs for interaction with UI



Friday, August 14, 2015

Client-side Performance Testing workshop video

As mentioned here, I conducted a Client-side Performance Testing workshop in TechJam.

It was a full house, and almost turned into a flop show because there was no wifi available - an essential requirement for the workshop. There were 2 things that saved me:
1. The attendees, thankfully (in this case) did not read the prerequisites well - most of them came without a laptop
2. Because of the above, I could get by using a 3G USB connection and just do a demo of the tools I wanted to show.

End of the day, all was good. I got good feedback from the participants that they really enjoyed the workshop, and it was very informative and useful. (Thank you all again for the kind words!)

Below is the video from the workshop.


The slides are available here:


Sunday, August 9, 2015

Questions about the Test Pyramid

After watching my presentation on "Enabling Continuous Delivery (CD) in Enterprises with Testing", I recently got asked a couple of questions about the Test Pyramid. Thought it would be good to reply publicly - that may help others who had similar doubts. 

If you have any other questions, please reach out, or add it as comments on this post.

  • Why do you talk about a JavaScript Test? I mean, why you don't consider this type of testing inside another? So, what do you mean by JavaScript test.
    • JavaScript testing requires different toolset, not the standard xUnit based ones. Hence I classify it separately. Also, there is potentially a lot of logic that can be built in the JavaScript layer - so it is essential to write tests for that too - say using Jasmine.
  • What's the difference between View and UI?
    • UI test should focus on business / user journey validations. However a view test is different. Consider a journey which has a 5 step / screen workflow. To validate some UI change on the 4th step / screen, you will need to go through, in sequence, from step 1 to 4 and then validate the changes. This is very slow and costly approach. Instead, if you build the right type of stubs / mocks, then you can setup the state in your product which simulates the step 1-3 are completed, and directly open the UI, go to step #4, and validate your changes. This is the difference in View and UI tests.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Agile Testing - Metrics can be fun too!

Metrics are meaningless unless in the right context. In this case, my "right" context is purely a "feel-good-factor". 

In April 2011, I published the "Agile QA Process" paper on SlideShare. I am very happy to see it has received over 30000 views and has been downloaded over 1400 times!

On a similar note, I created a mindmap for Test Insanse - titled - "Agile QA - Capabilities & Skills". That also seems to be hitting a good note - with almost 1000 views in under 25 days!

So in this case - Metrics are fun! I don't mind this ego boost to continue writing more, and sharing more!

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Experiences from "Agile Testing" workshop

As mentioned in this post, I conducted an "Agile Testing" workshop on 24th July 2015.

Here are the slides from the workshop:

  • What is Agile testing? - Learn what does it mean to Test on Agile Projects


  • Effective strategies for Distributed Testing - Learn practices that help bridge the Distributed Testing gap!


  • Test Automation in Agile Projects - Why? What? How? - Why is Test Automation important, and how do we implement a good, robust, scalable and maintainable Test Automation framework!


  • Build the "right" regression suite using Behavior Driven Testing (BDT) - Behavior Driven Testing (BDT) is an evolved way of thinking about Testing. It helps in identifying the 'correct' scenarios, in form of user journeys, to build a good and effective (manual & automation) regression suite that validates the Business Goals.