Issue 96

COMMENT

Welcome to the 96th issue!

Last week, I asked you to share some scary testing stories.

And you did!

One great example shared by Poorni Yasodara was about random app crashes that are hard to reproduce.

I faced one like this myself which disallowed some users from logging in to the app for a few weeks. That was super scary.

Another one shared by Christer Nilsson was about a cursor that jumped between fields in a continuous loop and never stopped. And it was on Internet Explorer, of course. 😄

So, with that in mind...

Happy testing!

NEWS

A Tester’s Takeaways: Postman State of API Report 2021

The world of API (and API testing) is evolving rapidly so if you're interested in the latest trends and changes, Beth Marshall shared three main key takeaways from the recent Postman's State of API Report 2021.

How do you manually test Accessibility?

This is a very practical question that someone asked on Reddit. And it got equally practical answers. Some of them include helpful tools that can help you in testing for accessibility across various platforms.

Security is another dimension of quality

Here's a great reminder and advice from Christopher Blanco about the importance of security and its relation to quality.

Tester's responsibilities

I like the way Diogo Nunes put together all of the tester's roles and responsibilities and described them concisely using interesting quotes.

A good complementary read to that is Blake Norrish's take on the common belief that "Testers just Validate Acceptance Criteria".

Testing Doesn't Improve The Product

"Testing doesn't improve the product. But if you want to find out where the product needs improvement, testing can help you with that."

As always, Michael Bolton has some great points about what the purpose of testing is and why more testing doesn't equal more quality.

Why Ad Hoc Testing Is Not Exploratory Testing

Just a week ago, I featured a great guide to Ad Hoc testing, and this week Callum Akehurst-Ryan explains how different it is from exploratory testing (both of which are often confused as the same technique).

AUTOMATION

3 Ways to Use Load Tests Beyond Performance

Reusing tests for different purposes? Why not. Dennis Martinez brings up three interesting cases for applying existing load tests.

Additionally, Mohamed Tarek gives a short piece of advice about Forecasting the Number of Users in Performance Testing.

API Testing from where to start?

If you're wondering how to start testing API, Emna Ayadi wrote a great guide full of useful references.

Related to that, Paulo Oliveira can help you decide with 20 Questions To Answer Before You Start Automating Tests.

Emulators and Simulators vs. Real Devices For Automation

If you automate tests for mobile, the common question is whether you should run them on simulators or real devices. Rex Jones II makes a good point of why it's not about one or the other but about using both at different stages of the development lifecycle.

Going deeper on "Should we automate each negative test?"

Gregory Paciga refers to the article I mentioned a week ago and elaborates more on whether it makes sense to automate all of the happy, negative and edge cases.

Use Regular Expressions in Test Automation

When used right, regular expressions can be a powerful tool. Zhimin Zhan demonstrates the cases where they can be useful in test automation.

Note: If you can't access the full article, simply open it in a private tab.

TOOLS

Four reasons why WebdriverIO is better than Cypress

Hugh McCamphill compares two popular test automation frameworks and explains why in his eyes WebdriverIO is superior to Cypress.

However, if you want to try out Cypress, Ignacio Machado wrote an easy to follow guide to End-to-end testing using Cypress, followed by the second part.

Generate Random Tabular Test Data

If you're interested in creating fake but meaningful data for your tests (you should), then Alan Richardson prepared a comprehensive guide for data generation tools such as Fakers, as well as his own Data Grid Table Editor.

Hello Appium, Part 1: What is Appium? An Introduction to Appium and its Tooling

There are many guides on Appium — a popular tool for cross-platform testing — but I found this one by Gaurav Singh especially helpful as it not only shows how to set up the tests but also how the framework actually works.

Load Testing with k6

Likewise, a lot has been written about the open-source load testing tool k6 but this guide by Agus Richard stands out thanks to a deep explanation of its functions, examples of various tests' types, and rich code examples.

Software Tools For Easy, Effective Exploratory Testing

What tools can you use for exploratory testing? Mirza Šišić listed out a number of great manual and software examples.

VIDEOS

Reducing Appium Tests Execution Time by 50%

A great addition to the Appium guide mentioned above is this intriguing 23-minute presentation by Chandan Mishra about improving tests and reducing execution time by half.

AND...

Software tester's life in memes... 🤣

Thanks for reading!

If you like this newsletter and it helps you become a better tester, you can say thanks and buy me a coffee.

Issue 96 November 5th 2021