Live Exploratory Testing

We don’t often see the nitty-gritty, everyday work of a tester live on a conference stage. It feels like it might be boring. We do a lot of our work by ourselves, alone at the computer screen. We spend big chunks of time interacting with the software, making decisions, and thinking about what to do next. Very few of our colleagues hear about what happens, and even fewer see enough of it to describe or pick up some of the skills themselves.

I’m going to perform some exploratory testing live on stage. I’ve built a simple Bookshelf web application, so we’ll have the opportunity to look inside the product: the code, the API specs, the API tests, and the front end in a browser. I’ll also have references available on http status codes, accessibility standards, and other relevant guides to use as oracles in our exploration.

I’ll spend a chunk of time narrating how I’m deciding whether something is expected or unexpected behavior (oracles), how I’m making decisions about what to look at next in the moment (microheuristics), and delivering the test debrief/report that I’d provide in my next conversation with the team.

We’ll see that specific example first, then we’ll build a general understanding of the tools and techniques I used. Armed with the name and descriptions of the exploratory testing thought process, you’ll be better equipped to map them to your own and turn what feels like ad-hoc poking around into a stategic, repeatable process yielding valuable results that you can share with your colleagues.