Exploratory Testing

Hello!

I am Chandan Kumar.

I am here to present ET. You can find me at cksonker@gmail.com

Exploratory Testing

ET is simultaneous learning, test design, and test execution." The tester designs and executes tests while exploring the product.

- James Bach

Technical investigation of the product, done on behalf of stakeholders, intended to reveal quality-related information of the kind that they seek.

- Cem Kaner

“Exploratory testing is all about discovery, investigation and learning... ”

When ET is required?

▪ No documentation is available on the application and we are responsible for both functional and system testing

▪ When you don’t have a requirement or testing document.

▪ When you want to complete your application testing in short period of time.

▪ When you have to test the application in the early stage of SDLC.You need to learn the product quickly.

▪ You have already tested using scripts, and you want to diversify the testing.

▪ You want to find the single most important bug in the shortest time.

▪ You want to check the work of another tester by doing a brief independent investigation.

▪ You want to investigate and isolate a particular defect.

▪ You want to investigate the status of a particular risk, in order to evaluate the need for scripted tests in that area.

Who should perform ET

▪ Informal exploratory testing should be performed by everyone involved in the deployment of the application, including business analysts, developers, testers and finally end users.

▪ The testing team has experienced testers

▪ New testers entered into the team

Simple Steps of ET

Learn Design Execute

Phases of ET

Learn-Use Case Study-List the requirement-Prioritize the requirement

Design-Mind set for Test Cases-Analysis of test cases with given requirement

Execute-Execute the tests-Record the tests

Interpret/Analysis-Analyze the tests-Analyze the results-Defect report

Exploration & Learning

• This talk will focus on the learning strategies and tactics that testers use in the course of exploration.

• We can talk about the other challenges, and I can quickly put together a brief presentation on any of the others, but I think that the learning issues are the most challenging and the most interesting.

● Questioning

● Observation

● Critical Thinking

● Root Cause Analysis

● Careful Observation

● Quick Learning

● Communication – Oral and Written

● Bug Hunting and Bug investigation

SKILLS OF AN EXPLORATORY TESTER

Advantages of ET▪ It doesn’t require preparation for

testing as we don’t have documents for testing.

▪ In this type of testing time saves due to all task are doing simultaneously like Testing, Designing test scenarios and executing test scenarios.

▪ Tester can report many issues due to incomplete requirement or missing requirement document.

▪ Few issues cannot be catch in this type of testing.▪ There is review of test planning & designing of test cases/scenario

while testing may cause issues.

▪ Testers have to remember the scenario what he is executing because if any bug is found then tester should report a bug with proper steps to reproduce

▪ This testing purely depends on the tester skills

Limitations of Exploratory Testing

Attributes of good exploratory testers

1) They are able to create good mental models of the system and its proper behavior.

2) They are careful observers who are able to see, hear, read, and comprehend.

3) They are skilled test designers who have ability to select appropriate test design techniques for different situations.

4) They are able to evaluate the risk, which provides further guidance to their testing.

5) They are critical thinkers who are able to generate different ideas, integrate their observations, skills, and experiences to concurrently explore the product, design the tests, and execute the tests.

6) They are self-managed and are able to take the lead in testing rather than execute a plan suggested by someone else.

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT EXPLORATORY TESTING

▪ Exploratory Testing cannot be managed or measured.

▪ Only an experienced tester can do exploratory testing.

▪ Exploratory Testing means no documentation.

Areas of Controversy

Quick Test Functional Testing

EXPLORATORY TESTING

As few testers thinks that ET is about quick testing while some others think about Functional testing

Controversy: How can ET be a Technique?

– Can you do domain testing in an exploratory way? �Of course

– Specification-based testing? �Sure –

-Stress testing? Scenario testing? Model-based testing? �Yes, yes, yes

– Is there any test technique that you cannot do in an exploratory way?

Types of ET

● Freestyle

● Scenario

● Strategy Based

● Feedback

Freestyle ET

● Ad-hoc exploration of application feature

● No Rule, not necessary to coverage past test cases

● Quicktime testing to learn and analysis the health of the product

Scenario Based ET

● Scenarios from use cases

● Scenarios from end user

● Scenarios from test scenarios

Strategy Based ET

● Freestyle testing with known bug with documented strategy like Boundary Value.

● Focus on learning and analyzing tricks when to apply this.

Feedback based ET

● Feedback from peer about past testing result/analysis

● Use history to guide additional testing

1:4(Bugs encountered in ET is, 4 times of scripted

testing)

Why ET is important?

ET is always important and every testers do it but they don’t know what is he doing

THANKS !

You can find me at cksonker@gmail.com