As the need for testing mobile applications increases, so does the need to understand and apply test practices that cover more than just functional correctness. Randy Rice leads you through techniques for designing the right tests for your mobile applications, whether they are on the device or on a website. Learn how to know which items of functionality are important to test based on relative risk. Randy presents his visual method of how to rank important attributes including usability, compatibility, accessibility, and security, and then how to design tests for them. Randy covers both manual and automated approaches to testing mobile devices. Learn the pros and cons of each test approach. See an array of tools from simulators and emulators to cloud-based testing on real devices. This is an interactive session, so bring your mobile device with you and learn mobile testing by doing it.
Randy Rice
A leading author, speaker, and consultant with more than thirty years of experience in the field of software testing and software quality, Randy Rice has worked with organizations worldwide to improve the quality of their information systems and optimize their testing processes. He is coauthor (with William E. Perry) of Surviving the Top Ten Challenges of Software Testing and Testing Dirty Systems. Randy is an officer of the American Software Testing Qualifications Board (ASTQB). Founder, principal consultant, and trainer at Rice Consulting Services, Randy can be contacted at riceconsulting.com where he publishes articles, newsletters, and other content about software testing and software quality. Visit Randy’s blog.
It’s one thing to be exposed to new techniques from conferences and training courses, but it’s quite another thing to apply them in real life. A major reason is that people tend to focus on learning the technique without first grasping the underlying principles. Basic testing principles, such as the pesticide paradox of software defects and defect clustering, have been known for many years. Other principles, such as “Test automation is not automatic” and “Not every software failure is a defect,” are learned by experience. Once you grasp the principle, particular techniques become more applicable and extensible. However, principles take time to learn and much practice to apply well. Randy Rice explains why true learning and application are not instant and what it takes to really absorb what we learn. Randy shows how two specific techniques—pairwise testing and risk-based testing—can be misapplied unless the key concepts are first understood. Leave knowing how to build your own set of software testing principles that can be applied in many contexts.
On large enterprise projects, the user acceptance test (UAT) is often envisioned to be a grand event where the users accept the software, money is paid, and the congratulations and champagne flow freely. UAT is expected to go well, even though some minor defects may be found. In reality, acceptance testing can be a very political and stressful activity that unfolds very differently than planned. Randy Rice shares case studies of UAT variances on projects he has facilitated and what can be done in advance to prepare for an acceptance test that is a beauty pageant rather than a monster's ball. Learn how UAT can go in a totally unexpected direction and what you can do to prepare for that situation. Understand the project risks when UAT is performed only as an end-game activity. Learn how to be flexible in staying in sync with stakeholders and user expectations—even test coverage is reduced to its bare minimum.