Conference Presentations

STAREAST 2018 AR and VR for Mobile Apps: Are You Ready to Test?
Slideshow

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) mobile apps are going to dominate the technical landscape for the next few years. Compared to current mobile apps, testing this new AR and VR technology will require more preparation, more effort, and new tools. BJ Aberle breaks down the methods and tools he uses to test AR and VR applications. Explore test environment requirements and discover the types of test data you’ll need to prepare for AR and VR testing. Learn about Google’s Tango AR platform and BJ’s experiences testing AR apps, including the Tango-based Cydalion app for the visually impaired. BJ shares the pitfalls he discovered—so you can avoid these when starting your AR or VR testing endeavors. Take back a set of new techniques you may be able to apply to streamline your virtual and augmented reality testing efforts.

BJ Aberle
STAREAST 2018 Release Automation: Yes, Testers Should Care
Slideshow

Agile DevOps focuses on moving changes through the pipeline as quickly as possible, which means that more operational tasks—like software deployment—will occur earlier. As a result, testing teams will begin assuming more responsibility in managing those deployments in order to perfect reputability. Tracy Ragan provides an overview of release automation as it relates to testing and explains how automation is key to achieving faster and leaner testing cycles. She discusses why deploying new code across diverse environments can be really tricky and slow, and how properly implemented release automation will streamline code deployments across the lifecycle. Release automation may sound like a topic important to production control teams, but as processes are shifted left, testing teams will take on more responsibility in continuous deployment and associated infrastructure components.

Tracy Ragan
STAREAST 2018 Five Things We’ve Learned from 100,000 Bug Fixes
Slideshow

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Kristel Kruustük
STAREAST 2018 Integration and Functional Testing Using Dockerized Dependencies
Slideshow

To emulate production-like conditions that cannot be tested on the unit level, many integration and functional tests need a realistic environment. However, performing these tests in a production-like environment is fraught with problems—test data management issues, tests that are difficult to execute repeatedly, and network traffic that causes long-running test execution times. Instead of having to deal with these problems and others, Irene Dhong employs Docker to simulate dependencies. Learn how you can take advantage of Dockerized dependencies for quick test writing, reusability of common development code, and the ability to test early and often on a very low functional level. Irene describes how her development team is using Docker to implement more effective TDD and unit testing environments because Docker utilizes similar infrastructure both on the development and DevOps side. Join in to get Dockerized, too.

Irene Dhong
STAREAST 2018 Devices and Desires: How Do Humans Experience Software?
Slideshow

We consume and still we desire more—more devices, more apps, more data, more bandwidth, more connectivity. The more we have, the more we want. We assume that to be true—those of us who work in the software industry. But is that true? To understand what is really required of our products, we need to design and test a pyramid of interlocking quality attributes that, together, make for an optimum experience. Isabel Evans discusses why and how we can evaluate UX and what is takes to deliver better UX to our customers. Isabel looks at the needs of the individual software user in conjunction with pressures from the commercial imperatives from the business and external forces from government, the environment, and the needs of society. To test the UX and thus deliver a good experience, we first need to understand the humans who use our products and match their needs and desires to the software’s user experience.

Isabel Evans
STAREAST 2018 Not Your Parents’ Test Automation: Application of Non-Traditional Automation
Slideshow

Most software organizations have a test automation initiative—some just beginning and others humming right along. Typically, these initiatives focus on traditional automation—using a software package to automate test cases or user stories. However, if you use only the traditional approaches to automation, you will miss opportunities to exploit the complete powers of automation. Paul Grizzaffi shares real-world examples where non-traditional automation or “automation assist” approaches, including high volume automated testing, have provided high business value testing in his company. He highlights instances where traditional methods could not have provided the same level of testing. Paul shares thoughts to keep in mind when implementing automation assists and demonstrates examples of helpers he’s created from tools not traditionally used for test automation.

Paul Grizzaffi
STAREAST 2018 Use Path Analysis in Test Design for Better, Faster Testing
Slideshow

No question about it … software is highly complex maze, and it could take many lifetimes to manually test all the paths in a typical business app. Automation doesn’t help much because it’s not smart enough (yet) to design tests. Rob Sabourin shares his experiences testing complex application—some with more possible paths than particles of matter in the visible universe. Although programmers have applied path analysis to structural unit tests for years, path analysis has been mostly neglected in areas of end-to-end testing, workflow, process flow, usage scenarios, data flow, and system level control flow. See how you can employ path analysis techniques to dramatically narrow down the myriad paths to a small collection which will quickly expose important cross feature interference, shared object, and resource contention bugs.

Robert Sabourin
STAREAST 2018 Testing in a Microservices and Continuous Delivery Environment
Slideshow

The combination of microservice architectures and continuous delivery (CD) create a difficult scenario for integration and release testing. Even though microservices often introduce a huge number of integrations and transitive dependencies, testing still must be completed quickly to keep the pipeline flowing smoothly. Robert Williams surveys the techniques and tools available today for testing one or more microservices against a mix of real and virtualized dependencies in various stages of the CD pipeline. He explores structured testing around multiple versions of those services and their dependencies. Robert demonstrates semantic versioning and a console for traffic shaping so you can specify a range of versions of microservice dependencies and automatically test the candidate service against a range of real or virtualized dependencies.

Robert Williams
STAREAST 2018 Exploratory Testing: Learn to Do It like a Bloodhound
Slideshow

Let’s face it—dogs are born to sniff everything. Using their noses, they gather information from other dogs, people, and most everything. We teach dogs to use their noses to find bombs, predict seizures, locate cancer cells, detect drugs, and so much more. When dogs smell, they are not just recording an odor; they get an entire story. Although testers have fewer scent receptors than dogs, Susan Zampino says that we can learn how to gather information like a dog to drive our exploratory testing. Using active audience participation, Susan will stimulate participants to rely on their sense of “smell” during exploratory testing sessions. Learn and practice multiple new techniques to gather information and uncover hidden risks. With some practice and consistent focus on using your technical, business, and testing experiences, you can become a bloodhound exploratory tester.

Susan Zampino
STAREAST 2018 Test Management in Agile—What Happened to All My Testers?
Slideshow

Substantial confusion exists about the roles and responsibilities of test management when using an agile software development process. Agile seeks to streamline project management and leadership under the role of a ScrumMaster. But what does this mean for test managers? How do they stay involved in the process? What role do they fill? Is it possible that test managers are no longer needed? Join Jeffery Payne for a collaborative dialog to discuss the pros and cons of a variety of test management models he has seen used by companies who have adopted agile. Learn how to best position yourself within the agile model to add value and continue to support your test teams. Take home practical knowledge on how test management is done successfully within agile projects.

Jeffery Payne

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