Author: kristinjackvony

I’ll be honest: UI tests are my least favorite automated tests.  This is because they are often so hard to set up.  There are dozens of different ways to run automated UI tests, but this can make things more confusing because it’s hard for someone new to automation to figure out what to do. So […]

This week we are looking at my favorite type of automated tests: services tests.  The reason I love services tests is because they test so much of the application without the hassle of the UI.  There are many types of services, but the most widely used service is the REST API.  And my favorite way […]

Last week, I started an eight-part series to demonstrate in a free and very easy way how to write automation for each test type in the Automation Test Wheel.  This week, we’re taking a look at component tests. As with every term in software testing, component tests mean different things to different people.  I like […]

This post is the beginning of an eight-part series on easy, free ways to automate each area of the Automation Test Wheel.  It’s been my experience that there are a number of barriers to learning test automation.  First, the team you are on might not need certain types of automation.  For example, my team has […]

Last week, we talked about how I would decide what to test in a simple application in terms of testing every segment of the Automation Test Wheel.  I find it’s very helpful to answer the question “What do I want to test?” before I think about how I’m going to test it.  This week we’ll […]

Last week’s blog post, “Rethinking the Pyramid: The Automation Test Wheel“, sparked many interesting discussions on LinkedIn, Twitter, and in the comments section of this blog!  The general consensus was that the Test Pyramid is still useful because it reminds us that tests closest to the code are the fastest and most reliable to run, […]

Anyone who has spent time working on test automation has likely heard of the Test Automation Pyramid.  The pyramid is typically made of three horizontal sections: UI Tests, API Tests, and Unit Tests.  The bottom section is the widest section, and is for the unit tests.  The idea is that there should be more unit […]

There are a great many articles, blog posts, and presentations that discuss automation frameworks and strategies.  But even the most robust automation framework won’t eliminate the need to do exploratory testing.  There will always be situations where we need to generate a large amount of text to test a text field or where we need […]

As testers, we know how important it is to test our software thoroughly and document our findings meticulously.  But all of our talent will be useless if we can’t effectively communicate our test results to others!  If your test results are written in a giant, poorly organized spreadsheet with tiny text and lots of unnecessary […]

Have you ever seen something wrong in your application, but you haven’t been able to reproduce it?  Has a customer ever reported a bug with a scenario that you just couldn’t recreate?  It is tempting to just forget about these bugs, but chances are if one person has seen the issue, other people will see […]