Download - Exploratory Testing - Kari Kakkonen
EXPLORATORY TESTING
Kari Kakkonen at Czech Test in Prague June 25, 2015
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Kari Kakkonen, Knowit
• Speaks, train, coach and mentor regularly about
• ISTQB Advanced, Foundation and Agile Testing + Knowit Quality Professional
• Quality & Test process and organization development
• Agile testing, Scrum, Kanban, Lean
• Metrics
• Leadership
• Test automation, mobile, cloud, DevOps
• Quality, Cost, Benefits
• Speaking & writing highlights
• EuroSTAR and Iqnite several times
• ASTQB in USA, OOP in Germany, TEST-IT in South-Africa, Nordic Testing Days in Estonia, Testing Days in Czech, Israel Testing Week
• Numerous times in Finland at Testing Assembly, Aalto Testing Days, Tieturi Testing, Talentum Testing Forum, Quality Assurance & Software Testing, ICT Expo, TestIT Summit, Microsoft, HP, IBM, Borland etc. events
• Testing Experience magazine, Quality and Testing magazine, Sytyke-magazine, Tietoviikko
• Education
• ISTQB Expert Level Test Management Full & Advanced Full & Agile Tester certified
• SPICE provisionary assessor certified
• M.Sc, Helsinki University of Technology / Aalto-university
• Marketing studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Professional achievements
• Wide spread of business domain knowledge
• Embedded, Industry, Public,
• Training, Telecom, Commerce,
• Insurance, Banking, Pension
• ISTQB Treasurer, Executive Committee 2015-
• Finnish Software Testing Board FiSTB, chairman
• TestausOSY/FAST founding member
• Knowit, Director, Quality and Competences
• Chairman of research project STX, Lappeenranta University of Technology
• Finnish Software Measurement Association FiSMA ry ex-board member
• Ranked in 100 most influential IT-persons in Finland
© Knowit Oy
Twitter: @kkakkonen
LinkedIn:
fi.linkedin.com/in/karika
kkonen/
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© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential | Version 1.0
#1 In Quality Assurance
What it is?
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 4
CHARACTERIZATION OF EXPLORATORY TESTING
• ”Planning and execution of testing is done at the same time”
(After James Bach)
• Test cases are not necessarily documented even afterwards (Cem
Kaner)
• Testing is done iteratively piece by piece
• Continuous learning and interpretation of conceptions
• Utilization of knowledge gained from experience
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 5
EXPLORATORY TESTING - TERMS
• Adventure may go to sidetrack as
long as you come back to
mainroad again (Kaner)
• Testing area: a bunch of
functionalities
• Testing session
• Duration about ½ - 2 hours
• Time span of concentrated work is
about 20 minutes
• Getting back to work takes about
20 minutes
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AN EXAMPLE: WWW.TOPSELLERS.COM, A FICTIONAL E-COMMERCE SHOP
• Test case: ”Log in. Browse the content of your shopping cart. Result:
Shopping cart is empty, because no items have been picked.”
• During testing it is noticed that the shopping cart contains items! Items
have been picked with the same user account and the e-commerce
shop keeps the earlier picked things in shopping cart.
• Aftertaste: ”The test should have considered this. Let’s change the test
data and the test itself, and design a new test case, which takes into
account that the shopping cart can store items.”
• A familiar situation?
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 7
LEARNING IN EXPLORATORY TESTING
Testing
Opinion-forming
Reporting
Designing actions
Observations
After reference: Psychology of Usability, Sinkkonen et al.
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LEARNING FROM THE SYSTEM AND CUSTOMERS
• What has changed or changes frequently?
• What do the customers want?
• What has been defined in an ambiguous way?
• Where do faults cluster?
• Weaknesses in the platform or programming language
• System dependencies
Reference: Lessons learned in software testing. Kaner, Bach, Pettichord
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 9
LEARN FROM OTHER TESTERS, DESIGNERS, FROM YOURSELF..
• What kind of errors do certain programmers make and how to report to
and communicate with them
• What typical errors can there be in the system
• What functionalities have been built in a hurry
• What have you misunderstood and what is typically misunderstood
• How can the system be tested (especially in pair testing!)
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 10
WHY EXPLORATORY TESTING? KNOWLEDGE-BASED PERSPECTIVE
• Exploit the natural diversity of people in testing *)
• ”Do not plan for store”
• Systematic variation of testing
• Quick feedback to the designers intensifies learning process *)
• Spread the knowledge of a tester of a special area
*) Reference: Exploratory testing: A multiple case study. Itkonen,
Rautiainen
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 11
WHY EXPLORATORY TESTING? TESTERS’ APPROACH
• Want to add more test cases and increase the coverage of the tests *)
• For defining the degree of automation of tests
• Quick overview of the quality *)
• Testing the side effects of changes – scripted testing can end up testing
only the documented features *)
• The problem in regression testing is the selection of test cases, which
requires user experience and understanding of the system
• When the test documentation can not be written in advance *)
*) Reference: Exploratory testing: A multiple case study. Itkonen,
Rautiainen
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 12
WHY EXPLORATORY TESTING? MANAGEMENT APPROACH
• Low management costs of test documentation
• Finding out the features of a poorly-documented component
• Optimizing the productivity of testing?
• When the available workload is limited *)
• When you want to train the customer support at the same time
*) Reference: Exploratory testing: A multiple case study. Itkonen,
Rautiainen
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How is it done?
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Step by step
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Plan
• Test charter
Test session
• Notes
• Bugs
Debriefing
• Dashboard
TEST DESIGN
• Define the testing areas of the test object
• Divide each area to one or more test sessions
• Test charter works as a roadmap per test session
• Define test cases to be documented
• heuristic: less than 10% of all tests
• Write down test ideas and/or high level test cases
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 16
PURPOSE OF TEST CHARTER(S)
• What will be tested?
• What documents are available?
• What kind of errors are being sought?
• Tasks and what test techniques will be used?
• Targets and outputs (for example reports)
Reference: A practioner’s guide to software test design. Copeland
Ref. Exploratory testing: A multiple case study. Itkonen, Rautiainen
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 17
Charter
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Area Coverage
and
working
hours
Practice
Documents Result possible
errors
Risks
R1. Customer’s
all selected
items are not
added to order,
Effect: 20
eur/buyer,
probability 5%
R2. Order can
not be
completed after
interruption, 5,
probability: ??
Main page 100%
Path coverage
(direct paths) and
the most common
(80% used) loops
10h
Scripting
with
Functional
Tester-tool
Main page display
description
document, navigation
map (COMING
FROM
DEVELOPMENT)
All pages and
the shopping
cart are
available
Shopping
cart
5h Shopping cart-
UC.doc (use case)
Shopping cart
can be used in
the same way
as a real
shopping cart
The same
product can
not be added
to shopping
cart several
times
Emptying the
shopping cart
causes an
execption
R1
Order ? Order-UC.doc? R2
Charter as an excel
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 19
DOCUMENTS SUPPORTING TESTING 1 (2)
• Charter
• List of different testing strategies
• Lists of heuristics
• List of typical errors
• Kaner’s bug taxonomies*) (bug taxonomies are introduced in more
detail in risk-based testing course)
• Legal notices, standards, de facto-standards…
*) Reference: Testing Computer Software. Kaner et al.
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 20
DOCUMENTS SUPPORTING TESTING 2 (2)
• Requirements and design documentation of the
system
• Self made description of the system behavior
• User guide *)
• Documents that help to evaluate the conformity
• HICCUP- mnemonics: History, Image, users' Claims, Comparable products,
Users' expectations, Purpose, Product
*) Reference: Exploratory testing: A multiple case study. Itkonen, Rautiainen
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 21
Kaner’s bug taxonomies: (Testing computer software, p. 60 – 64)
• User interface errors
• Error handling
• Boundary-related errors
• Calculation errors
• Initial and later states
• Control Flow errors
• Errors in handling or interpreting data
• Race conditions
• Load Conditions
• Hardware
• Source and version control
• Documentation
• Testing errors
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 22
PERFORMANCE ATTITUDE - PROFESSIONAL WORKING
• Keep the targets of testing in mind
• You can visit bypaths but only for a moment
• Write down observations and questions about the system
• Report in a disciplined and systematical way
• During the execution, write only the most essential test cases and in
high level
• Test cases can be refined later
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 23
TESTS DURING EXECUTION
• Define a test from a question
• Design test on the basis of charter and test
ideas
• A surprising situation may indicate an error:
Utilize the surprise effect!
• ”Backwards thinking”: ”This button saves
the definition text. I wonder what other
ways are there for saving the text?”
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 24
NOTE TAKING: TEST EXECUTION LOGS
• Keep a test execution log
• Keep track of the tests carried out
• Main thing is that executed tests are noted
• You may create scripted test cases of some of the tests
• Keep the most important test cases that have been executed, which show
how the testing has been done, e.g. what values have been used
• You may record your execution
• Write down also test notes for test session post-mortem and your own
learning
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 25
NOTE TAKING: DEFECT LOGS
• In defect reporting, traceability to the requirements must be
maintained so that coverage can be evaluated
• A well written error log is the best evidence of the existence of a fault
• Report a bug clearly, so that the failure can be repeated
• You may use defect reporting systems
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 26
TESTING DASHBOARD AS A TEST REPORT - AN EXAMPLE
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 27
Test area Workload Coverage Quality
level/risks
Comment
Main page !Interrupted High,
5h Very high [all
parts + stress
tests etc..]
49: 1435, 36: 1469,
42: 1501
wait for more
pictures of
user interface
Shopping
cart
!Started
High, 2h (reserved
4h)
Low [main parts
to testing] (High)
81: 1425
[probability 9 x
effect 9; error
number. 1425]
Order !Done
6h (reserved 4h) High [all parts]
Feedback !Not done
Low (reserved 1h) Low [main parts
to testing]
MEASURING EXPLORATORY TESTING
• The duration of the session
• The relative change in the number of test cases by the same tester
• Coverage of testing per session
• The number of interruptions (Suspension criteria)
• Number of rejected defects in defect database
• …
• Metrics are the eyeglasses of testing that you need in order to be fully
aware of the situation and potential problems in testing
It is recommended that you choose metrics that are suitable for the
challenges of exploratory testing
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 28
Some Tools
• Notetaking: • Screenshots With Annotation
• Video with Annotation
• Intergrated bug reporting
• HP Sprinter
• QA Symphony qTest eXplorer
• Telerik Test Studio Explore
• Bug Magnet
• Notepad++ (pad tools in general)
• Xmind (mindmap tools in general)
• Rapid Reporter
• Pivotal Tracker
• Test charter planning • Task and backlog tools
• Test charter planning
• Trello
• Jira Agile
• HP Agile
• Excel
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 29
Who can do it?
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WHO TO RECRUIT? THE PROFILE OF AN EXPLORATORY TESTER
• Exploratory testing is particularly well suitable for a person, who…
• likes to take risks
• is not afraid of changes or new things
• is open-minded
• sets challenges and goals to themselves
• is smart and quick in finding test conditions
• ”Pioneer-style”
• Everyone can learn to be an exploratory tester
Reference: Choosing and Managing the Ideal Test Team. Lloyd Roden
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 31
EXPLORATORY TESTING REQUIRES LEARNING SKILLS
• Outline the functionality of the system on paper
• Aim at understanding
• Don’t force yourself to remember facts, use documents
• Ask questions about the functionality of the system
• Recognize the items on which you need more information
Reference: Tutkiva oppiminen. Hakkarainen et al.
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CONSIDER THE LEARNING STYLES
• When you explore the system functionality, *)
• are you trying the system yourself?
• do you ask a colleague to explain?
• do you create models of the software functionality?
• are you interested in the details or are you trying to understand the overall
picture?
• Some learn by trying, others socially, others by thinking…
*) Reference: Learning Styles and Exploratory Testing. Kaner, Tinkham.
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RELIABLE INFORMATION TO SUPPORT TESTING
• Sources of information: background
documents, own experience, interviews...
• Conceptions are created about the
system and the specifications
• Are the documents reliable?
• What is the "fact"?
• Evaluate the sufficiency of the information sources
Formation of
conception
repor-
ting
design
findings
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 34
BE CRITICAL
• Information has inconsistencies and errors
• Exploratory testing is not a substitute for professional documentation
• Find out what data sources the customer considers to be stone carved
definitions of and facts about the software
• Find out what to do if the specifications contradict each other
• Be suspicious! Suspect everything!
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 35
IMPROVE YOUR TESTING THINKING SKILLS
• Observe your own testing habits
• Recognize your own ways of thinking
• Learn from misunderstandings and mistakes
• Select the testing techniques according to the situation *)
• Improve your skills to deduce the states of the system *)
Adapted from the reference: Tutkiva oppiminen. Hakkarainen et al.,
*) Reference: Rapid Software Testing. James Bach
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential 36