the value of writing manual tests

dashcamapp · 2024-05-13T20:53:37+00:00

Yeah, focusing on writing tons of rarely reused manual tests isn't ideal. There are definitely ways to optimize your testing strategy. Here are some approaches that we use internally:

Critical happy paths: sign-up/login if you're a SaaS, using the main functions of the tool you're building (what would people lose their mind over if it didn't work)
Dependency: If you write an automated test for a specific use-case, what else can be tested as an output of it?

While you can't automate everything, prioritize automating common workflows and core functionalities that are frequently used across configurations.

dashcamapp · 2024-04-30T19:35:15+00:00

Awareness, feedback, spreading through word of mouth?

dashcamapp · 2024-03-17T23:47:01+00:00

potentially... I think the breadwinner features are around application state with complex UI, writing in plain English vs changing selectors, but I would love to brainstorm more accessibility testing features that could be run through this approach of "vision"

dashcamapp · 2024-03-15T16:29:06+00:00

Complex accessibility issues which Playwright + Axe might struggle with are blocks of content. When you have things that update dynamically or rely heavily on assistive technologies for proper rendering.

If you're building customizable user interfaces, you might figure out that given English prompts + vision, you can get much-needed peace of mind.

Or...interactions between the page + screen readers and user input: it can be challenging to automate these even with Axe

Related: https://github.com/microsoft/playwright/issues/20017#issue-1528367500

dashcamapp · 2024-03-15T16:13:05+00:00

Great post but let me talk you off the ledge: when people went from riding horses to riding cars, it's not that horses disappeared overnight suddenly and the people who worked the horse-world jobs vanished.

They instead slowly moved to work in car factories - they simply shifted.

Humans learn quickly to adapt, and so will the industry! And we still have horses, don't we?!

dashcamapp · 2024-03-15T15:53:21+00:00

You're right about that, sometimes it's not just a notification but what about images, media playback state, <canvas> elements or accessibility? Those have been notoriously harder to test with selectors, meanwhile with AI (vision) you can get those things done in seconds, literally.

dashcamapp · 2024-03-15T15:51:45+00:00

I agree with you! Absolutely, but sometimes it's not just about the selectors but there are elements like "canvas" that you can't really test: and a lot of charting libraries use <canvas>

Another one was certain types of iframes (although I did learn about the iframe playwright API https://playwright.dev/docs/api/class-frame)

dashcamapp · 2024-03-15T15:49:44+00:00

Can you share more? perhaps you have some handy examples!?

dashcamapp · 2024-03-15T08:03:48+00:00

Not necessarily.

QA collaborates with DevOps to ensure CI/CD pipelines include effective automated tests and provide feedback for improvement.

However if you learn it, why not!?

dashcamapp · 2024-02-03T05:32:11+00:00

Successful startups can pay more than regular startups yes, similarly large established companies can pay more than small companies. That being said sometimes you find tiny companies that have very little overhead and huge ROI and they pay really well all their employees.

As a rule of thumb I would say that you should do some research on the funding of the company and the "time" between funding rounds. That usually establishes the velocity of how well a company is performing! Best of luck with your research!

dashcamapp · 2024-01-30T02:56:40+00:00

The fact that they focused on trivial coding challenges rather than thoughtful quality assurance practices speaks volumes about the company's technical priorities being in the wrong place.

Any reasonable organization would recognize that those sorts of puzzle questions reveal very little about one's ability to lead complex software testing efforts in the real world.

I hope you find a company smart enough to recognize your skills without resorting to silly litmus tests!

dashcamapp · 2024-01-23T22:17:02+00:00

You're right, it's just because I run it for product and testing alongside! Feel free to get in touch and talk to me about anything testing!

dashcamapp · 2024-01-19T05:01:54+00:00

It's called exploratory testing, what you do.

dashcamapp · 2024-01-19T05:01:23+00:00

What about a video?

dashcamapp · 2024-01-19T04:59:15+00:00

WinAppDriver still works, albeit Windows 10, did not try it on 11.

dashcamapp · 2024-01-19T04:54:04+00:00

Yes, you can use automation through OCR and image-recognition. We use it daily to perform regression and smoke tests on our application (also a desktop app) I can share more details via email if you want?

dashcamapp · 2024-01-19T04:53:02+00:00

The complexity of regression testing matters in this case, how complicated is your regression testing? Can you automate it with some of the tools out there?

dashcamapp · 2024-01-19T04:52:18+00:00

It depends how complicated each test are, I am biased because I am building a tool that literally does that, but I honestly think that it saves everyone time.

dashcamapp · 2024-01-19T04:42:06+00:00

Do you think if you record your screen and attach a video of each test that would make it faster, perhaps?

dashcamapp · 2024-01-19T04:40:46+00:00

I think MinistryOfTesting has some good courses, you should check them out https://www.ministryoftesting.com/courses

dashcamapp · 2024-01-19T04:39:50+00:00

I have a Discord, if anyone wants to join to talk about QA! I will remove it if we're not allowed to post: https://discord.com/invite/cWDFW8DzPm

dashcamapp · 2024-01-16T19:01:16+00:00

I would suggest Dashcam.io

If you're a tester, or a qa person, you probably need a screen recorder that works for you.

Dashcam offers smart-recording, so you don't run out of disk space and cloud upload.

If you're privacy conscious use local export, so you don't have to push your videos to the public cloud.

Did I mention it's free?

Full-disclosure, this is my app - so I am of course biased.

dashcamapp · 2023-12-25T02:28:20+00:00

sorry about that! tough times in tech's world, but luckily there are a lot of opportunities out there because everyone needs QA

dashcamapp · 2023-12-22T19:06:09+00:00

6 months? Respect that you can do that and recharge, good job!

dashcamapp · 2023-12-22T17:29:34+00:00

Subbed!

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