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The Developer Community’s Response to Microsoft Acquiring GitHub

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microsoft acquires github
On Monday, Microsoft announced its acquisition of GitHub in a $7.5 billion deal.

Since GitHub’s platform serves over 28 million developers and hosts around 85 million projects in an effort to create a community of collaboration and learning, this news is near and dear to our hearts at SmartBear.

Where SmartBear serves a hefty 6.5 million software professional in over 22,000 companies, many of our users are familiar with GitHub and regularly use it as a code repository. As the heart of the open source community, freelance developers and tech giants alike (Amazon, Google, and Apple come to mind) use GitHub for projects small and large.

So why Microsoft’s interest in GitHub in the first place? Microsoft is the top contributor to GitHub with roughly 1,300 employees pushing code. After recently shutting down its own version of GitHub, CodePlex, Microsoft mentioned that they had already moved most of their projects to GitHub, noting “GitHub is the de facto place for open source sharing and most open source projects have migrated there.”

For this reason, the acquisition isn’t totally surprising, and to many speculators, seemed like the logical next-step with Monday confirming rumors.

Upon hearing of Microsoft’s acquisition, we’ve noticed mixed reactions. Looking quickly at the poll on SmartBear’s Twitter, you can see the vote is split.

The majority of respondents at 38 percent take a neutral stance and don’t think much will change. Meanwhile, people are weighing in on each end of the spectrum with 34 percent foreseeing positive change and 28 percent feeling uncertain towards GitHub’s future.

Those that are faithful in Microsoft are hoping that it could provide the stability GitHub has been needing in recently turbulent times. Additionally, there is excitement around the ways that Microsoft will be able to elevate GitHub’s current capabilities by making it easier to develop in the Azure cloud, expanding the GitHub Marketplace, and integrating VS Code with GitHub support, for example.

Where does the skepticism come in? Some are afraid that GitHub could go the ways of Skype after Microsoft’s acquisition of it in 2011. After Microsoft made software updates to the popular video calling platform and refocused it for enterprise consumers and corporate markets, loyal Skype users began taking to the internet to complain, saying bugs in the UI had made Skype too difficult to use and it did not resemble the software they once loved.

Additionally, not all developers trust Microsoft to be the open source ally it claims to be. Some fear that keeping their projects on GitLab could take a turn for the worse if Microsoft were to use their powers for evil and dig into competitors’ private repositories or take advantage of data mining.

A percentage of users have taken on such a strong stance against the acquisition that they are already flocking to rivals such as GitLab, possibly influenced by the #movingtogitlab hashtag and discounted packages.

One thing’s for certain, Microsoft has done a lot for the open source community, which is something devs can get behind. Supporters of the acquisition point out that Microsoft isn’t the same company it was a few years ago since CEO Satya Nadella came on in 2014.

Pursuing open source technologies such as PowerShell and Visual Studio Code, Microsoft has made notable contributions to the open source community in recent years thanks to Nadella. Additionally, by making the move to support more open source ventures such as embracing Linux, Microsoft has separated itself from its anti-OSS reputation in order to offer products and services that work on a variety of platforms developers are using.

It’s apparent with the acquisition of GitHub that Microsoft hopes to continue making a name for themselves in this space, and the company has promised to keep GitHub independent and open.

This is something that we’re passionate about at SmartBear as we strive to support the open source community, and many of our tools are either open source or integrate with open source projects.

While Microsoft makes a valiant effort to play a critical role in the open source community, it seems that our best option is to get behind them until they give us a reason not to.

Webinar: Meet the QA Team Behind America’s Test Kitchen

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america's test kitchen QA

America’s Test Kitchen is all about perfecting the recipe for success, literally.

With two TV shows, three print magazine, and four different websites, they’ve built a customer base that is hungry for quality culinary content. But their users are also paying close attention to how they’re being served their online experiences and want to consume it in a way that works best for their lifestyle.

This means the QA team is under a microscope when it comes to releasing a Michelin star web application that works across a large selection of devices and browsers. Whether users are taking a cooking course, shopping for kitchenware, or watching one of the pros whip up a delicious dinner, America’s Test Kitchen strives to satisfy from the backend to the front of the house.

Join CrossBrowserTesting and America’s Test Kitchen QA Manager Megan Collins & QA Engineer Michael Ng as we go behind the counter to learn about what kind of testing is needed to keep up with a company that aims empower and impress millions of home cooks.

In this webinar, you’ll get a taste of:

  • What the America’s Test Kitchen QA strategy looks like
  • The incredible growth of the testing team and their shift to automation
  • How they use CrossBrowserTesting to serve up their cross-compatible web app on a silver platter

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6 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Decide What Test Cases to Automate

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decide what test cases to automate

Even just the idea of test automation is enough to get the attention of most software teams. But while the idea of faster testing may seem like the silver bullet, there’s a time and place for automation.

Before you jump in head first, you should evaluate how automation is actually fitting into your organization. By asking these questions, you can get a better idea as to whether automation is the right move, or if you should take another route.

  1. What’s the risk involved? If you’ve performed a risk analysis of your application, you probably have a good idea of which test cases are the most important to check in each code change and which are a lower priority. Consider how human error could affect test data if it’s not automated. Think about how different test cases that may critically impact the customer and/or impact internal team downtime if broken. Additionally, you might want to automate high traffic page, features that depend on security, and problematic areas and other functions that rank high on your risk analysis. Angie Jones talks about this in “Which Test Should I Automate,” which she’ll be presenting at SmartBear in a meetup on June 26. Register now or tune into the livestream.
  2. How often am I going to run this test again in the future? Running the same test more than once may seem repetitive and tedious, but if you’re not actually going to be running it frequently, it might not be worth it to automate. For example, if you know you’re going to have to test a feature two or three times but won’t be keeping it as a permanent part of the application or won’t be testing it after that, you might want to rethink automation. The tests you decide to automate should be a foundation of your regression testing strategy, so if you don’t feel like they’re a critical part of the application to be checked in every code change, it may be best to keep them separate.
  3. How much time am I willing to invest? When automation requires so much time and maintenance, you have to determine the ROI of your efforts. Some regression tests may seem like they’re a candidate for automation but upon closer inspection, might not be worth the energy for the value they’re providing. Automation is not a quick, one-and-done solution to your problems. Take a lesson from Elon Musk — you don’t want to drop automation into the mix without a second thought. Spend the time making sure your first test is checking all the boxes and meeting requirements. Then determine how often it will need to be updated or reevaluated in order to establish whether or not automation is worth your time investment.
  4. Are there parts of this test case that still need to be explored? You might think that you’re ready to automate, but keep in mind that automation comes after a thorough exploratory testing session. Just because you can automate doesn’t mean you should, and many tests are better off being performed manually. Are there still instances that could benefit from human observation? While you can’t expect to manually cover every part of the application, getting a foundation during exploratory testing is what leads to more successful, stable, and insightful automated tests.
  5. Does automating support the needs of my team? If you’re automating a test case, you want to make sure the tests you write are going to actually answer the questions your team is asking. First, take a hint from Bas Dijkstra, and discuss the “why” before firing up a test automation tool. While Selenium is a great tool for automation, understanding the nuances of the many commands and abilities of it can take some getting used to, so if you’re not able to write a script that encompasses all of the requirements your team is requesting, another method of testing may be better. If you still feel that you automation is the best process for the job but don’t feel confident in your Selenium skills, a tool like Record & Replay may help you achieve your testing goals. There are many choices when it comes to automated testing tools, so you need to make sure the one your organization uses will support the testing you’re trying to accomplish.
  6. Why are you automating? Sometimes the most simple questions can give you the most telling answers. If you’re automating because you think it’s what you should be doing or because your boss is telling you to, you might not be automating your tests for the right reasons. Your objective with test automation should be to provide insight to you your team and give faster feedback. If you have ulterior motives, your efforts won’t take you very far.

Conclusion

Even if you could automate every test, you would quickly find it’s not helping you or the rest of your team very much. Next time you’re deciding on whether or not to automate, ask the right questions first.

How to Integrate Tests Written in Hiptest with CrossBrowserTesting

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hiptest crossbrowsertesting

Have you heard the good news? We’re excited to welcome Hiptest to the SmartBear family! As a platform for continuous testing, Hiptest is further supporting the needs of Agile and DevOps teams.

With this new addition comes the question of how Hiptest integrates with other SmartBear tools. If you’re thinking it sounds like a great addition to CrossBrowserTesting’s 1,500 real desktop and mobile browsers, you’re absolutely right.

In fact, there’s a variety of ways to combine everything you love about Hiptest and CrossBrowserTesting whether you’re using Live Testing, Record & Replay, or Automated Testing with Selenium. Take a look at how you can leverage the two tools to make a perfect pairing.

Manual Testing

The great thing about using CrossBrowserTesting and Hiptest together is how simple it is to get started – there’s not much new to learn if you’re already familiar with both platforms, just a few ways to align the tools and get the best results.

When it comes to manual testing, it’s easy to take the tests you wrote in Hiptest and test them on a vast selection of browsers and operating systems in CrossBrowserTesting’s Live Testing.

Everything is done very similarly to how you would normally test in CrossBrowserTesting using a browser emulator, but you should note that it’s a good idea to link your test results.

The first method for doing this is adding a CrossBrowserTesting link with your custom URL, which you can find when you click on “Share” in Test Results.

CrossBrowserTesting has both publicly viewable links and privately viewable links. This example uses the public link that you get under “Share”, but the private link would be copied from your address bar and look like “https://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/livetests/%s”.

Hiptest CrossBrowserTesting SmartBear

You can also apply the tag, which will take you to your live test when you click the link icon. You want to use the CrowsBrowserTesting ID you see in the browser and create a tag “CBT:<value>”. This should give you the link to the test in CrossBrowserTesting, and in this example, would take you to https://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/livetests/11831640.

Hiptest CrossBrowserTesting SmartBear

By following these steps and linking through Hiptest, you’re connecting the scenario to a specific page or test in CrossBrowserTesting to keep your results congregated on one platform.

Record & Replay

If you’re looking to speed up your testing, use CrossBrowserTesting’s Record & Replay to record your manual steps, then set up a Record & Replay tag in Hiptest and tag the scenario.

You can follow the same method as you do when manual testing to link to Record & Replay in Hiptest except you’ll want to use ‘https://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/automation/scripts/%s” as the URL for the custom link.

For the first test, use Record & Replay to record your steps. When you save the script, you’ll notice the URL looks something like “https://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/automation/scripts/5aeb5aaa95c4204821c3d070”. Copy the end value into the tag for the scenario.

The next time you have to run the scenario, click on the tag, select your browser and operating system configuration in CrossBrowserTesting, and click “Replay Script”.

If you play your cards right, you should be able to automate your manual script with one click and no Selenium knowledge needed.

Automated Testing

You can also run automated Selenium tests with Hiptest and CrossBrowserTesting.

Once your Selenium tests are running locally and have been set up using action words in your scenarios and folders, choose your language and framework in the automation tab of your project.

After that, all you have to do is update the command for fetching WebDriver to use CrossBrowserTesting.

It would look like this in Java:

RemoteWebDriver driver = new RemoteWebDriver(new URL("http://" + username + ":" + authkey +"@hub.crossbrowsertesting.com:80/wd/hub"), caps);

When you restart your test, you’ll now see them running in CrossBrowserTesting.

To get the username and authkey needed for this test, you have to have a CrossBrowserTesting paid or trial account, and you can find them under the User Profile section in the app.

To get a better look at how you would do this, follow the video below:

Hiptest + CrossBrowserTesting

Integrating Hiptest and CrossBrowserTesting is a simple way to multiply your testing power without putting a pause on your workflow. Whether you’re automating or testing manually, the process is straightforward.

If you want to learn more about the different uses of CrossBrowserTesting, you can check out the best uses for each capability. If you want to learn more about Hiptest, take a look at their resources for getting started.

How Every Team Member Can Leverage a Test Automation Tool

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test automation tool

With the introduction of test automation tools such as CrossBrowserTesting, it’s easier than ever for teams to meet the demands of Agile, CI/CD, and DevOps. However, while testing used to be a job strictly for QA, software teams are finding that this no longer applies to their development process. As organizations continue to shift left, the lines continue to blur between different roles, and testers aren’t the only ones testing anymore.

If your entire team is ready to take on more testing, here’s a few ways each member can best leverage a test automation tool.

Digital Marketers – Think that your marketers have no use for testing? Think again. Anyone on your team that cares about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will likely be aware that mobile responsiveness is a factor when it comes to domain authority. In fact, Google has stated that responsive design is the recommended design pattern, which means that web applications that are optimized for mobile will actually show up higher in peoples’ search results. Your marketers may want to take advantage of a visual testing tool so that they can evaluate priority pages on different devices and screen sizes to determine whether or not they’re responsive. Ensuring mobile-friendliness will also benefit SEO by accelerating site speed, decreasing bounce rate, and boosting social sharing, making testing a marketer’s secret weapon.

Product Managers – Testing doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t) wait until the end of the SDLC. In fact, it can take place as soon as the planning stage, especially when shifting left. Product Managers can expertly use the data of past test results to influence the direction of the product, but they can also perform their own testing to make immediate improvements and determine what changes should be made in the application next. By focusing on the usability of the application, product managers can perform exploratory tests to better understand what forms could be more intuitive or determine if the site is optimized for accessibility, for example. Additionally, product managers might find value in testing newer features recently implemented by the development team that impact usability (home page layout, checkout process, etc.) to make sure it fits into the buyer journey they way they intended.

Designers – If your designers have been manually testing your website to make sure it looks good across browsers and devices, that’s a good first step, but they shouldn’t stop there. Visual testing allows them to automatically capture screenshots of a URL on tens of browsers and compare them side-by-side. By picking a base browser, they can see where there are differences in each layout and decide which are acceptable and which need to be fixed. Whether an app is off by one pixel or a hundred, your designers can determine for themselves whether everything looks the way they want it to across configurations. It’s also important to make sure everything works in addition to looking exceptional, which is why Record & Replay helps test across the same browsers to make sure things like buttons, navigation, and link are all working as expected.

Developers – While we believe that every software development team should have it’s own dedicated QA team, that’s not to say that there are not certain times where developers should test their own code. It goes without saying that when a new feature is added, change is made, or bug is fixed the developer should ensure basic functionality of that new implementation after the code is adjusted by testing it. For longer test cases or more elaborate projects that restructure large areas of the application and require more extensive, end-to-end testing (such as you might see with a website rebrand), developers might want to also run one-off tests without taking up too much time. By leveraging prior programming knowledge to learn Selenium commands, developers can ensure functionality without spending hours on testing. Instead of manually executing a basic test case, they could write an automation script in a fraction of the time and still cover large areas of code to check whether it passes or fails.

Manual Testers – Manual testing will always be a crucial part of QA because it depends on the curiosity, observation, and skill of the individual to execute tests that will provide insight to the rest of the test. However, while exploratory tests can be the best part of the job, manual regression tests can be the bane of their existence. Despite the name of the role, manual testers no longer have to be confined to strictly manual testing. With test automation tools like Record & Replay, manual testers can automate the tedious, boring, and repetitive testing that they’ve come to dread without having to learn a programming language or getting up to speed with complex testing frameworks.

Automation Engineers – For the tester that’s mastered Selenium and has too many UI tests to count, how can they speed up testing to take it from days to hours? Parallel testing is the key to making your automation time even faster. By simultaneously testing in multiple browser configurations at once instead of one after another, parallel testing allows you to take your suite and divide the time spent running tests. Just by running a test in two browsers at once, you’re already cutting your automation time in half because you’d be testing them all at the same point in time. You can see where this would really pay off as you continue to add more tests, create longer suites, and run them on more browsers.

Conclusion

When everyone in the SDLC is moving fast to implement and deliver new features, testing is no longer a one-man job. In order for other team members to meet their deadlines, they must also be held accountable for some of their own testing.

While we can never replace the important work of our QA teams, there are tools that can help ensure that everyone plays a part in ensuring speed and quality from planning to deployment.

How to Deliver a Five-Star Testing Conference Presentation

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testing Conference Presentation
It seems like everyone’s in conference mode whether they’re being mentored, submitting to speak, or bringing new knowledge back to the team.

But when it comes to taking center stage and actually delivering your talk, how do you make sure you get your message across? Here are a few tips we’ve picked up that should help you nail your presentation.

  • Set Up Your Story – You want to think about more than the content of your presentation, you also want to think about how you’re going to frame it. For example, you don’t want to just jump in and start talking about your topic. Let your audience know what you’ll be talking about and why, so they can understand how it relates to them. Think about how you’re going to introduce yourself — this will help communicate with the audience why you’re an authority on what you’re talking about and give context for your topic. Lastly, don’t forget about the ending. Make sure you round out your presentation, repeat the main takeaways, and include contact information and social media handles you want to share so that people can get in touch with you after.
  • Practice, Practice, Practice – Practicing is important for a few reasons. It helps you set a pace and realize how fast or slowly you’re talking. It helps you know if your presentation is a good length. It lets go through your presentation from beginning to end to find out if your message flows the way you were envisioning. Practice with a friend, a co-worker, or family member. Practice in front of a small group or in front of the mirror. Do all of the above. This will help you identify which parts you know best and which you need to work on. Plus, the more people that you practice for and the more you do it, the more comfortable you’ll be with your content when it comes time to deliver it to your audience.
  • Use Presentation Tools Wisely – As Rob Lambert said, “The slides should support the presentation – not be the presentation.” Nobody wants to read a slide filled with text, and no one wants to watch you read word-for-word from your slides. Your slides are a visual aid to help tell your story, which means that you should be using them to drive home your main takeaways. Try to keep them simple and succinct, including the most memorable tidbits of information. Make sure text is large enough to be read from the back of the room, and don’t forget to proofread. Use any images, videos, or gifs that you think will help make your point and further engage the audience. Perform intermittent demos to show your methods. And remember, bullet points are your friend.
  • Consider Your Audience – Many tech conferences aim to draw a diverse crowd, which means that people from all over the world will be coming to hear what you have to say and learn from you. This is a great opportunity, but you also want to be mindful that the content your delivering resonates with a diverse audience. For example, some American pop culture references may not be understood by someone who traveling from abroad. For example, Nick Heiner talks about a conference he went to where one of the presenters use a Shakespeare reference that non-native speakers didn’t understand. While this shouldn’t dissuade you from making connections to what you know, be wary that your audience might not be familiar, and be prepared to explain if you’re drawing a connection that you’re not sure will translate. Especially if you’re speaking internationally, this is a good thing to keep in mind when planning out your presentation.
  • Prepare For Questions – Learn more about your topic than you think you have to. You’re presentation isn’t done when you reach the last slide. There will likely be a Q&A after, which means you need to be prepared to answer peoples’ questions. Don’t be the person who delivers a great presentation, then stands dumbfounded when someone asks about it. If there are any common holes in your topic that you think could come up, make sure you have a response ready — as part of your preparation, you might even want to encourage anyone you practice in front of to think of a few questions for you. If people want you to elaborate your methodology, make sure you’ve thoroughly researched so that you can you can provide that insight. Consider the tools and resources that you use in case someone is interested. Remember, many of these lessons are ones that people will be hoping to bring back to their team and implement in their organization, so make sure you’ve given them everything they need to do so. If for some reason you aren’t able to answer a question, make sure to follow up with the person so that you can reach out to them once you figure out a response.
  • Fake it Till You Make It – You don’t have to be a textbook extrovert to be good at public speaking. In fact, most of the time it’s more about acting confident than being 100 percent comfortable speaking in front of a large group of people. Often it comes down to enunciating your words, speaking clearly, and pacing yourself. Take it a step further by acting positive, passionate, and excited, even if you’re really just nervous. In addition, if you make an effort to connect with your audience, whether that be pinpointing specific people to “talk to” and make eye contact with it or even making your conference presentation interactive, you’ll find it’s a lot less intimidating than it seems. Making a conscious effort to breathe doesn’t hurt, either.
  • Don’t Let Imposter Syndrome Get to You – Especially in the software testing and development community, it’s easy to feel like you don’t really know what you’re talking about or aren’t as good as others in your field, otherwise known as imposter syndrome. It’s helpful to realize that everyone feels this way from time to time, including the people you look up to who inspired you to talk in the first place. Remember that multiple people selected your proposal out of hundreds of other proposals because they recognized you have a valuable story to share. The good news is that once you deliver your talk and everyone tells you how amazing it was after, these feelings subside and you’ll be happy you did it.

No matter how great your content is, your topic will fall short if you don’t put on a memorable talk. Whether you’re a first-time speaker or a seasoned keynote, your delivery will make or break your presentation.

The next time you get a proposal accepted, think about these points before you get on stage to make sure you stand out in your audience minds well after the conference has ended.

Join Our Upcoming Webinar on Creating a Cross-Compatible WordPress Website

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cross-compatible wordpress website

Did you know WordPress powers over 30 percent of websites on the internet? People love WordPress because it’s easy to set up and has thousands of templates and plugins that reduce development and deployment costs, making it the most popular Content Management System in the world.

Since about 75 million websites use it, there’s no surprise that WordPress developers are so high in demand. However, with thousands of browser and device combinations, it takes more than superstar coding and design skills to be successful — you also have to be an expert in cross-compatibility. Otherwise, you risk losing users and clients.

But how exactly do you make a WordPress site that’s cross-compatible? Amidst the proliferation of devices and screen sizes, there are thousands of ways that someone could visit your website.

As a copywriter, developer, and consultant for all things WordPress, Jenni McKinnon knows it’s not about just creating a beautiful website, but also creating a cross-functional once. This means having a website that works and looks great no matter where your users are coming from.

Join CrossBrowserTesting and Jenni McKinnon in our webinar on Tuesday, May 29 as we discuss:

  • What it means to be cross-compatible
  • Determining how your users are visiting your site
  • Techniques for building a cross-compatible WordPress site
  • What to look for when testing your site and how to do it

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What Elon Musk Taught Us About Test Automation

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elon musk test automtion vs manual testing

As Elon Musk continues to “wow” the world, he’s grown quite the fan base among the tech community.

While most of us can only dream of founding the next Tesla or Space X, there’s plenty of wisdom we can gain from Musk, much of which he shares over social media.

Like any great leader, Musk knows that we often learn more from our mistake than our successes, which is why he was the first to admit he had messed up with the Model 3 production.

He attributed the operational mishap to an excess of advanced automation, saying that “humans are underrated”.

What came of this failure was actually a lesson that is extremely valuable in testing — automation is great, but can’t be used all the time. Humans are essential to ensure a quality of the highest standard and catch mistakes that machines won’t always recognize.

Trouble in Production Paradise

Being Elon Musk isn’t easy. In the last year, he’s faced his fair share of challenges, but one of the most recent has been the production delays for Tesla’s Model 3 Sedan.

As one of the first affordable Tesla models, it’s no surprise the pre-order numbers were sky high. In response, Musk used an assembly line run by automated robots for fast production and projected to make 5,000 of the car every week to meet demand.

In reality, the number Musk was able to achieve with this method was closer to 2,000. Once he realized that the degree of automation was actually slowing down the process, he stepped in and took over.

Though automation seemed like the perfect solution for quickly and consistently building the cars, Musk acknowledged that he had gotten complacent about some of the new technology, putting it all towards the Model 3 without staging it first, according to CBS.

In turn, Musk had to scrap the production model and spent countless long nights working himself, because that’s what you do when you’re Tesla’s CEO and have to deliver thousands of product every week.

While the robots were impressive, they didn’t stack up to the complicated and detailed process that went into making the Model 3. It seems Musk could have benefitted from more spending time learning the ins-and-outs of the machines and designing a plan specifically for the Model 3 Sedan project.

Additionally, if there had been a balance of automation and manual, the two processes could have supported each other and worked as a symbiotic relationship. Instead, an overreliance on automation caused the production downfall.

Our Fascination with Automation

We all love to love automation because it’s new, shiny, and a lot of times it’s a great solution to manual work.

However, in our excitement over the possibilities of automation, many of us have experienced too much of a good thing. By overdoing automation, oftentimes we are negatively impacting productivity.

Through Elon Musk’s trials and tribulations with automation, he effectively taught the software testing and development teams of the world a few important lessons:

  1. Effective automation depends on the quality of your first “robot” — if you don’t dedicate the patience and precision required, you will see your results fall short.
  2. The job isn’t done once the bots are built. Automation depends on extensive maintenance and upkeep.
  3. When automation backfires, you must step in to manually alleviate the damages and make necessary alterations.
  4. There will always be a place for manual testing. In the discussion over whether or not AI will take over these jobs, there is no question that human engineers will continue to have an integral part of the QA process.
  5. Automation follows a pattern. If there are any new obstacles or factors that haven’t been considered, it disrupts this pattern and affects the results.
  6. Learning the intricacies of new technology is critical. Before diving in headfirst, you have to spend the time becoming familiar with how it functions and what you can expect.
  7. Planning is critical. It’s easy to underestimate the amount of time, cost, and effort that goes into putting an effective automation strategy into effect, and sometimes manual work will be more productive.

If you’re beginning to implement automation in your organization, or if you’re finding it hasn’t been giving you the results you were hoping for, take a step back and reconsider your test automation strategy.

Automation is not a quick fix — it requires extensive planning, monitoring, maintenance, and upkeep. Elon Musk himself proved that you can’t just expect one robot to solve all your problems.

From Bad to Brutal: Performing a Risk Analysis of Your Web Application

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risk analysis in software testing

Test automation is great, but even with the ability to cover more parts of your application in less time, testing everything is impossible. This is why you have to perform a risk analysis of your web application in order to decide when certain test cases get performed and how often.

There are many levels to creating a risk analysis, and deciding which tests go to the top level depends on largely on your business needs and the state of your application. However, these five considerations will give you a good place to start when trying to decide your most important tests.

  1. Most Popular and Problematic Browsers – Take a look at Google Analytics or Mixpanel to see which browsers, operating systems, and devices are being used most often to access your web page. The number of configurations you include in your testing will depend on how fragmented your user base is. You want to ensure basic functionality for at least 80 percent of your users, so if 80 percent are between five browsers, you can get away with including those five in your first tier of testing. However, if it’s split between ten configurations, you’ll want to allow more time for cross-browser testing. If you do find browser use is highly fragmented, parallel testing is a good way to check off your boxes in multiple configurations at once. But we’re talking about risk here, so you also want to think about which configurations cause the most problems for you. IE 8 always breaking? Make sure to include it in your first tier.
  2. Most Critical Unit and Integration Tests – Which tests will have the biggest impact on your bottom line if broken? For example, if you’re running an e-commerce website, the ability to enter payment details and submit them for processing is clearly important for allowing users to make a purchase. If they aren’t able to make a purchase and the application fails when they try to submit this information, they won’t be giving you their business and will probably go to a competitor. On the other hand, this will be different if you’re working in healthcare, finance, or government, for example. Identify the unit and integration tests that make up the foundation of your business as well as your application and associated risk on a scale from minimal to critical in order to determine which place at the top of your risk analysis.
  3. Most Common Landing Pages – Ask any marketer — a big part of the success of any web application is a user’s first interaction with it. This means that you should be looking at the pages with the heaviest traffic to determine which should be tested most often in regression. Choose five to ten pages that users land on most often. Whether that includes the homepage, pricing page, or the “about us” page, you want to make sure these are consistently up to par with a healthy mix of functional testing and visual testing.
  4. Security and Privacy – Ensuring security in any instances where personal information is being requested from your users should be of top importance in your risk analysis. Take note of any times where payment is being received, passwords are being entered, contact information is input, or confidential information is requested. In addition, any part of the application that may have an impact on the safety or financial status of your users should always be a priority to ensure that their data is uncompromised. Just ask the companies that have been victim to some of the worst software bugs in history — once you lose user trust, it’s hard to get it back.
  5. Extended Downtime – Which functionalities will take the longest for your team to get up and running again? While your users should usually be your first priority, sometimes risk goes beyond their inconveniences when it puts the entire team on a backlog. If you already know it’s not going to be an easy fix that could affect the application downtime for days and team productivity for weeks, it should probably be high on your list when thinking of risk. Where have you had issues in the past? History repeats itself in life and your application. Log and report areas that have a high probability of failure so you can prepare your team and avoid excessive repair time.

You have to be familiar with the risk associated with different functions and features in an application to know what should be tested first, what should be tested again, and what you can deprioritize.

While you can never guarantee that code will be deployed with zero bugs, you can develop a strategy to ensure that any issues that do slip through the cracks won’t be detrimental to your application.

The Top Google I/O 2018 Announcements to Get Excited About

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Google IO 2018 developers conference android p
It’s that time of year again, where all the big names in tech congregate to talk about the innovations they’ve been working tirelessly on. It all happens at the annual Google I/O developer conference, held in Mountain View, California at the Shoreline Amphitheater.

There’s Android updates and AI galore, so if you missed the keynote, take a look at some of the most exciting announcements.

Android P

It’s not Google I/O without an Android OS update. So what should we expect from Android P?

Perhaps the biggest addition to Android P is the integration of Digital Well Being. The new dashboard will clue you in to some of your phone activity, showing how much time you spend in different apps and how often you unlock your screen to help you come to terms with your phone addiction. You can also set time limits on usage, and the phone will screen will turn to gray if you go over. It’s interesting the Google’s mobile OS is actually encouraging you to use your mobile less, which probably isn’t a bad thing.

In addition, you might notice is that they took away the home button. Instead you swipe up to see an overview screen of your apps. There are a few other improvements on the interface that are supposed to make navigation and gestures more intuitive. This is probably the biggest change Google has made to Android in terms of how you actually use and interact with it.

There’s also going to be some fancy AI that will adjust your brightness and close apps that are using up battery — for those of us that always keep them running in the background, this might be a lifesaver.

Following in the footsteps of Android’s other OS’s, (the last being Android Oreo) Android P is still waiting to be dubbed a dessert. So what will the P stand for?y Popsicle? Poptart? Pie? Pudding? There’s no solar eclipse this year to reveal the name, so we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, the beta version is already available on a selection of Android phones.

Google Assistant

Amid all the competition in voice recognition software, the name of the game is creating the most natural experience to make interactions feel like real conversations, which is exactly what Google is doing.

Whereas you had to say “Hey Google” or “OK Google” everytime you talk to Google Assistant before, now it only takes one time to continue a conversation, and Google will listen up to eight seconds. This makes it easier to get the response you’re looking for, even if you have follow up questions.

Google also has made improvements in the voice to make it more like a real person and less robotic thanks to Google Duplex. In fact, in the demo, Google Assistant made an actual phone call to schedule a hair appointment and didn’t sound too far off from a real human.

Additionally, you have have your choice in voice because Google Assistant can speak in six new voices, including John Legend. If nothing else works, using John Legend’s voice should be a good way for Google to get a leg up against Alexa.

Smart Compose

Ever wish people could just read your mind? Well Google AI might make that a reality. Smart Compose will use machine learning to help finish your sentences in Gmail.

It’s a little bit like autocorrect or the suggested text feature you see on apps like iMessage and Facebook, but with longer phrases and sentences. Because Google has a lot of your data to go off of, it’s bound to be much smarter, which is either very cool or a little scary.

Google Maps

If you’ve ever been confused at the direction you’re supposed to be going in Google Maps, there’s a new AI integration that will make your life a lot easier. Now with Google Lens as a part of Google Maps, the directional arrows on your screen on give you foolproof navigation.

All you have to do is point your phone and the StreetView AR overlay will show you which way to go, while keeping the map at the bottom of the screen. There’s no release date in store for this feature yet, but it gives some hope to those who have a bad sense of direction.

For You and Your Match will personalize Google Maps to tell you about what’s happening in the area and use machine learning to show you how likely you are to enjoy a specific place.

In addition, Google Maps is getting safer for drivers with the ability to read your text messages when you’re following a route. You can also ask Google to share your ETA, and it will estimate and send your time of arrival to a contact.

Google Photos

At the end of the day, it’s all about the ‘gram. That’s why Google is making it easier to become the designated photographer of your group with new upgrades to Photos. Suggested actions can actually identify your friends when you take pictures and will offer to send them those photos. This way, you can avoid the constant reminders to send last night’s pictures in your group chat.

You’ll also have the ability to re-colorize black-and-white photos, which we imagine would be really useful if you ever decide to dig up those old family photo albums.

Conclusion

As usual, Google did not disappoint. Whether you’re into the latest and greatest in AI and machine learning or just want to get to your desination without getting lost, there’s something for everyone at the I/O developers conference. It seems like Google knows exactly where the future of tech is heading, and we’re happy to be along for the ride.

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