Starting as a Junior QA? Don't worry, I got you

Mario Tupek — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 10:13:37 +0000

Almost 5 years ago, I've started my QA journey as a student (AKA Junior) and didn't even know what QA was! Little by little, I started picking up pieces of what QA might actually be and how to do it properly. A lot of mistakes were done in the first year (tbh, it was the hardest one for me personally), but as the years went by, it gradually became easier because of all the knowledge I've managed to gather. This post will have a few tips for all my fellow Junior QAs' that are just starting out and hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes.

1. Write down everything

This is the most crucial part that will make your life much easier. When you are testing web app, mobile app, TV app, etc., you HAVE to write down every single thing you notice while testing. Reason for that is very simple: You'll forget to report it later. That's it. It happened to me and it happens to everyone. We're not robots that can remember every scenario that we've tested, step by step. We're only humans that have errors. Those things that you'll write down (whether it's on plain paper, notepad, code comments, etc.), they will become useful when an unexpected issue appears and someone asks you if it happened before. And guess what, you'll have a log of it written somewhere and explain that it was tested and eventually reported issue.

2. Devs are your best friends

You might think this is not possible, but when it happens, it's the best relationship within a project (or a whole company) you can have. At the beginning, devs will hate you, prepare for that mentally, because it can be exhausting to hear "It's a feature, not a bug" a million times. In those moments, if you are really certain that it's actually a bug, you can ask another dev for a second opinion. In some cases, it really can happen that it's a feature, no matter how hard you really see it as a bug, and that is perfectly fine. You've done your part and move on for more testing. Just remember that, in this relationship, you have your best intentions to break their code for better product at the end. :)

3. Don't forget your main goal

Usually as a junior, forgetting what's on your plate for testing is really easy. You want to prove yourself to the others by reporting as many bugs as possible, and it's completely natural to do that, but one thing to understand: You've been given a goal to accomplish under defined deadline and with certain requirements. Follow those requirements and you'll be golden. By reporting visual issues (icons and pixels misaligned, missing exclamation mark, colour is 5% brighter than in design, etc.) before incoming release, you'll create a mess inside your team and nobody needs to think that product is not working properly. Your time for reporting those issues will come. Sticking to your main goal is something you should have on your mind, day by day, as you're testing a product.

4. Testing only acceptance criteria is not enough

Everyone can test it, and you're not everyone. You are QA, and your job is to think outside of acceptance criteria (AC). Every issue that you'll discover will mainly be between the lines of written AC and it's your job to turn on your special QA skillset that you possess and break the AC, little by little. It's your time to get into the shoes of all those end users that will be using your tested product. Think of every possible way they can use it, convert it into cases and test it.

Summary

Hopefully these tips might come in handy to some of you, as they would certainly have helped me when I started as a junior. What do you think about them?
Let me know in the comments if you have any other tips or disagreements you'd like to share.

Tips for testing Apple tvOS applications

Mario Tupek — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 15:18:32 +0000

As a software tester, I've worked on numerous projects regarding mobile applications, websites, etc., but never have I imagined myself testing a tvOS application for Apple TV. When I got the message that I will be testing an app for it, I was really thrilled and couldn't wait to test it, but at the same time, a bit nervous because I didn't have any experience of testing smart TV apps whatsoever. After researching for a bit, I've realised that it's nothing more than an iOS-based system with similar frameworks, concepts and technologies only converted into a little plasticky black box for TVs. Therefore, here are some tips that I've learned while testing the application in terms of comparing it to mobile apps.

TIP 1: "Size matters"

The first and main thing you'll notice (if you've never tested apps for TVs) is that in general, TVs are large-sized 16:9 screens. Accordingly, layout of the elements should scale properly on the interface and they should be clearly readable and seen without any cut outs and blurriness (especially text and picture sharpness). Also, because of the layout (and because apps are made in that way), elements (in general) will be displayed in horizontal orientation and thus, testing becomes a bit different. Since there are many sizes of TVs on the market, there's a difference between displaying the amount of elements on a 32" and 55" TVs, so advice to you is to check with appropriate person if elements should be dynamically resized and shown on any kind of TV sizes.

On the other hand, apps made for mobile devices (which are ofc, much smaller) have different aspect ratios and since the layout is automatically different, elements will be displayed in vertical orientation.

Side note: I've also tested layout on a monitor that's 21:9 aspect ratio, and believe me, it's night and day difference from 16:9. Everything was stretched in size and it was clearly visible that text and pictures became more blurrier (you never know if someone will open your app with Apple TV box connected to a 49" super ultrawide monitor and see those ugly black boxes on the sides).

TIP 2: Prepare to collect a lot of pictures (not screenshots)

While testing the app, I've managed to find many differentiations in terms of shown layout design and elements compared to the actual design. Naturally, I was going to screenshot it directly with Apple TV remote, only to see that the screenshot is black. I didn't want to waste time so I used my phone to take a picture and use it as a reference in a bug report. After that, I googled quickly on how to take screenshots only to find out (yeah, you guessed it) Apple doesn't allow it.

So if you encounter many issues while testing application, the most painless method is by taking pictures with your phone and either Airdrop it to your Mac (if you use it) or send via email. Many of the methods I've googled were too complicated and time-consuming to set up, and pictures that were taken with phone had a good quality for developers to notice differences.

TIP 3: "Did you try turning it on and off?"

One morning I was installing newest build and logged into the application. After a couple of minutes of scrolling and redirecting to different screens, I've noticed a strange loading screen that didn't disappear for a couple of minutes. There was no error message or any popup that would indicate which problem occurred. I've lost half an hour of troubleshooting only to see that I've lost internet connection in my house. So, after getting internet connection back and checking the application, screen loaded as intended. Therefore, you should always test these types of cases because you don't know what type of internet end user has which, in the end, really brings down user experience by a mile.

Conclusion

TV manufacturers, IT companies and other interested parties make a lot of investments into smart TV apps nowadays and it's either "make or break" situation. End users tend to not use apps that are poorly optimised because experience nowadays disappears in a couple of seconds. Make sure that you create a proper amount of test cases that have certain complexities to it which, in the end, will deliver the best possible end user experience and make your testing actually fun, thriving and exciting.

Feel free to share your experience with testing tvOS apps and smart TV apps in general and if you have also experienced similar problems.

DEV Community: Mario Tupek