The majority of teams now have some form of automated checking/testing on their UI, however, with the advancement of tools at other levels of an application, we can move some of those checks to a lower and usually faster to execute seam. This class will introduce you to a whole host of these tools along with working examples and reasoning.
Course Length
This course is available a one day or two-day format.
Course Description
A lot of teams are heavily dependent on GUI level automated testing/checking. With the majority of engineers opting for Selenium WebDriver. Now Selenium is a fantastic project, and WebDriver is superb API. If I was wanting to automate some user journeys in the browser, I would turn to WebDriver. Unfortunately, though, WebDriver seems to be the default tool for a lot of, if not all the automated checking teams do, regardless of context, and what it is they are actually trying to check.
This can be problematic for multiple reasons, the main being that these checks tend to be slow and brittle, this, of course, depends on the skill level of the person creating them, it’s not always the case.
Another big factor is that with them being at the browser level you almost always end up checking a lot more than what you intend to. They’re not focused and targeted on a specific piece of functionality or behaviour.
It doesn’t have to be this way though.
Tools below the GUI have come along way in recent years. They’re endless javascript libraries available for automated checking of javascript. With more teams adopting APIs, there has been an increase in tools available for doing automated API checking. There have been huge advancements in visual checking tools, which teams could take advantage of.
In this technical hands-on tutorial, Richard/Mark with introducing attendees to these new tools/frameworks. We will work as one big automation team to move existing GUI WebDriver checks further down or up the stack. Examining what the original intention of the check was, and now having more exposure to new tools, could we rewrite them at a different level in the stack. Then reflecting on the impact this has had on our automated checking, are they more targeted or faster than before, time will tell.
The experiential aspect of this tutorial is that it’s up to you the attendees, where we decide checks move to if they move at all. As mentioned above, we will be working as one big team, so there will be lots of lots of discussions and learning from peers. So the direction the workshop takes is down to you, but of course with our expert guidance.
So if you’re interested in advancing your automated checking, this is the course for you.
Takeaways
- Exposure to new frameworks, libraries and tools
- A realisation that using WebDriver has given them lots of transferrable programmable skills
- More options to tackle automated checking back in the workplace
- Skills and techniques for identifying checks on the wrong level
Richard’s workshop beautifully captures the power and the pitfalls of using automation tools in testing through the medium of duplo. It is simple, powerful and very effective. Taking part in this workshop should be mandatory for anyone who writes code (or wants to), anyone who works with coders or anyone who leads such people. - Ben Kelly, Director of Reliability Engineering @ Moneytree
I felt that this week's training nailed our intended outcome of increasing people's confidence and competence around automation in testing. The confidence part alone is huge as it had been a bit of a phantom for many people in the room for a long time. I am looking forward to people's stories about how they continue the momentum from the course - Sebastian Mutti, Tool-smith Specialist @ Swisscom
In November 2016 I attended Richard's Getting Started With Selenium Webdriver course at Selenium Conf 2016. Although my passion for testing was almost dead (my passion-for-testing-monitor showed a flat line), Richard really inspired me to become a great check automator through his passionate, holistic (personal <=> professional) approach of the topic and testing in general. I truly recommend Richard as a teacher and person for speaking about testing topics. - Joel Grimberg, Software Quality Consultant @ Xebia Group International
The 3 day AutomationInTesting course by @FriendlyTester & @2bittester was a blast! Valuable concepts to gain a deeper understanding of testing and how automation can help us. Lots of interactive discussions, hands-on exercises, real-life problem solving! Really recommended. - Lisi Hocke, Principal Agile Tester @ FlixBus
First and foremost, kudos to Mark and Richard both for making [AiT] the best professional development experience I’ve had in my professional career. Every single person I talked to loved it. And I already started using the principles you taught us in everyday work decisions - Alex Landis, Software Test Engineer @ Daxko
Thank you for all the inspiration from the course! These past two weeks have been great. First of all we decided to go for Cypress, and the developers are stoked about how much they learn about the application when writing (or trying to write) tests. It has already resulted in some improvements in the code and has also given an explanation to some strange behaviour we haven't really been able to pinpoint before. Today we also had a small workshop, that I prepared based on your slides about auditing, where we did some models explaining the system - also much appreciated. - Sanna Huhta, Test Consultant @ ADDQ
Like the best DJs, the facilitators were able to assess the mood in the room and tailor accordingly. Many courses I’ve been on have been hampered by a rigid itinerary, this was not the case at AiT. A constant feedback loop kept the participants engaged and enabled them to shape the class to their needs. - Chris Whitehorn
I wanted to send you a quick note to say thank you again for the great training you provided in Utrecht! It has had a significant impact on me, on how I understand and talk about automation and on how I approach many topics! - Jérôme Lasserre, Team Lead - Test Automation and Reporting Tools @ Ubisoft
Best Software Testing workshop I've attended in recent years. Can't recommend it highly enough! - Jarsto van Santen, Software Test Engineer @ Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs (DUO)
I think you have the right content in the course and also the balance between the practical and theoretical parts is done very well and keeps the flow alive and by the whole training very good to follow. - Sebastian Mutti, Tool-smith Specialist @ Swisscom