Selenium locators best practices

The skill of building robust Selenium locators is both science and art. This skill stems from a special kind of intuition that you can only attain while working on real-life projects. Most QAs agree it takes months, sometimes years, to develop this intuition.

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Selenium IDE for Chrome

What is Selenium IDE?

Ever noticed how some companies literally call their products Selenium IDE in Chrome? Katalon and Kantu are two examples, but I’m sure you’ve seen more. If you are new to UI testing automation and this seems confusing, Selenium IDE has nothing to do with these.

Rather, Selenium IDE is a standalone Firefox extension for record-playback testing of web UIs. This tool allows testers to record interactions with a UI and automatically rerun them during regression testing.

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What is end-to-end testing?

What is end-to-end testing?

End-to-end testing (e2e testing) is a software quality assurance methodology that ensures correct functioning and performance of applications in production-like scenarios. This methodology checks if an application performs as designed on all levels and across all subsystems. The scope of end-to-end testing encompasses the application in its entirety, as well as its integration with external interfaces and outside applications.

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Image and screenshot comparison tools for UI testing

There is a simple case for why end-to-end UI testing is impossible without automated image comparison. Absence of a screenshot comparison tool puts your product at risk of shipping with visual bugs which rarely go unnoticed by users. No sane QA engineer is willing to accept that risk.

So do you automate image comparison when testing UIs? And if yes, what automation tool do you use? Is it a simple module for WebDriver (or other code-based solution) or a dedicated visual CSS regression testing tool?

Let’s look at the popular tools and platforms that QAs leverage to compare screenshots when testing web UIs.

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ROI in Software Testing and Automation

There’s an annoying misconception about the test automation ROI that’s been haunting the QA industry. The misconception is that by its very nature, software testing doesn’t have any ROI. Quite literally, some folks (including people from SmartBear) argue that the concept of ROI doesn’t really apply to software QA.

If, for some odd reason, you believe this too, allow me to opine as to why you’re wrong:)

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Manual testing tools in 2018

What manual testing tools is your team using in 2018? Amid the talks of AI-driven tools and the automation of everything, most of software testing is manual in 42% of companies. If near-100% automation is the goal, we’re still a long way from reaching it. This means the industry still needs manual testers and manual testers still need good software testing tools.

Luckily, there are dozens of solutions out there to aid QAs. So if you want to streamline manual testing, this post will explore the best options for test management, bug management, and low-code test automation.

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Software testing at Facebook and Google in 2018

If you’re researching best practices for software testing, Google and Facebook are among the biggest trendsetters in QA. So how are the giants ensuring software quality in 2018?

Let’s see if the Google Testing Blog and Facebook Engineering Blog can help us answer this question. This post will piece together the bits of first-hand info from these two resources, as well as comments from Googlers and Facebookers. Without further ado, read on for a high-level overview of how Google tests software in 2018 or jump to the section covering Facebook.

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9 automation testing tools to consider for web applications in 2018

The year 2017 saw an impressive number of important events as far as UI automation testing tools go.

In 2017, we witnessed the end of developer support for Selenium IDE and PhantomJS. We’ve also had a full year to evaluate how the 2016’s acquisition by Micro Focus has influenced UFT. Finally, the releases of Angular 5 and React Fiber have introduced new challenges for QAs, making GUI testing tools even more relevant.

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Al in Software Testing: Artificial Intelligence Testing Methods and Tools

The advent of AI in software testing is imminent. When asked what part of the software delivery cycle needs artificial intelligence the most, most people name software testing. Mainstream media like Forbes herald the future of AI-driven testing. What’s more, associations like AISTA emerge to advance AI in testing automation.

So is it time to panic?:) Are testers going to lose their jobs soon? My guess is there’s still plenty of time before Skynet takes over…

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Manual testing checklist for web applications

Go to manual testing checklists | Download the Manual Testing Checklist PDF.

Here’s a fun fact: manual testing accounts for ~75% of functional tests. Let that sink in for a moment. In our brave Agile world that lives by the motto “automate everything”, we only automate 25% of functional testing. Why does this happen?

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