Although usability and user experience may seem synonymous, they are separate and much different concepts. While usability is well defined in standards, UX has no agreed upon definition because it relates to a more nebulous attribute-user satisfaction. Both are, however, key ingredients for successful system deployment. Because they don’t know how to measure and evaluate UX, many teams ignore this important attribute until the end of development. Philip Lew discusses how to model both usability and UX by breaking each attribute down into measurable characteristics-learnability, user effectiveness, user efficiency, content quality, user errors, and more. Phil shows you how to derive measurements and metrics that your development and team can employ to benchmark, analyze, and improve both usability and UX.

Test execution automation is often seen as a technical challenge-a matter of applying the right technology, tools, and smart programming talent. However, such efforts and projects often fail to meet expectations with results that are difficult to manage and maintain-especially for large and complex systems. Hans Buwalda describes how the choices you make for designing tests can make-or break-a test automation project. Join Hans to discover why good automated tests are not the same as the automation of good manual tests and how to break down tests into modules-building blocks-in which each has a clear scope and purpose. See how to design test cases within each module to reflect that module's scope and nothing more. Hans explains how to tie modules together with a keyword-based test automation framework that separates the automation details from the test itself to enhance maintainability and improve ROI.

Cloud computing is here to stay-and it is changing the way we test software. Cloud-based testing offers flexible, scalable, and on-demand infrastructure services. And as a bonus, because the cloud offers pay-per-use purchasing options, cloud-based testing usually costs less. Tauhida Parveen describes the concept of cloud-based testing: scope, specific requirements, benefits, and drawbacks. She explains how cloud-based testing brings new capabilities and options for your testing activities-instantly creating and dismantling test environments and miming production environments in early testing. Tauhida discusses how to engineer scalable environments for load, stress, and performance testing. Then, she introduces cloud-based compatibility, cross-browser, and cross-platform testing opportunities you can exploit.

In many development organizations today, quality is the responsibility of everyone on the project-both developers and testers. However, getting devs fully engaged in this testing continues to be a challenge. Andrew Prentice describes two approaches-blitz testing and mentored testing-that help Atlassian’s developers gain the skills they need to improve code quality before the testers get their hands on the application. He shares how they structure and organize blitz tests-group test sessions, the various roles participants play in them, and how to foster their viral adoption. Andrew also describes mentored testing, including its potential risks and mitigation options. He examines the skills and tools testing teams need to implement these techniques with their devs.