DEV Community: Pratibha Sangam

15 Testing Conferences You Should Attend This Year

Pratibha Sangam — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 07:04:04 +0000

Conferences are the best place to exchange your knowledge. When it comes to testing conferences it’s no less.

So, if you are looking to delve more into software testing world to gain major insights on what is going to happen this year you must move ahead and attend some of the best testing conferences.

If you are clueless which ones to attend, here are the top 15 conferences in software testing, analysis and quality assurance which you find interested to dip your toes in. Find your most suitable date and place and dive into the world of testing!

1. Nordic Testing Days

This international testing conference is held annually which largely focuses on software testers

Date: : June 6–8th
Location: Tallinn, Estonia
Website: nordictestingdays.eu
Twitter: @nordictestdays

2. Better Software West

Date: June 3–8th
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Twitter: @TechWell
Website: bscwest.techwell.com/program/interests/software-quality-testing

3.Testing Guild

Date: June 20–22nd
Location: Online
Website: testingguild.com
Conducted by : Joe Colantonio

4. Agile Testing Days USA

This conference is primarily for Agile community. Anyone who is interested in development, testing and QA can attend

Date: June 25–27th
Location: Danvers, Massachusetts, USA
Website: agiletestingdays.us
Twitter: @AgileTDUSA

5. ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

ISSTA is a research symposium on software testing and analysis and attracts academics, industrial experts and researchers, and practitioners to exchange new ideas, problems and experiences in their fields.

Date: July 16–21st
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Twitter: @issta_conf
Website: conf.researchr.org/home/issta-2018

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6. CAST (conference for the Automation of Software Testing) Held annually

It brings together developers, testers, researchers, and managers to exchange their ideas and experiences

Date: August 6–9th
Location: Cocoa Beach, FL, USA
Website: associationforsoftwaretesting.org/conference/cast-2018/
Twitter: @AST_News, #CAST2018

7. STeP-IN Forum

As the tagline of the summit goes ‘Connecting Machine Learning, AI, IoT, Blockchain and Big Data together’ it grabs the attention of industrial experts, test engineers and quality checking pioneers.

Attention Asians!. STeP-IN Forum is one of the largest testing conferences in Asia. Go grab the opportunity.

Date: August 31-September 1st
Location: Bengaluru (Bangalore), Karnataka, India
Website: stepinsummit.stepinforum.org
Twitter: @stepin_forum

8. Techwell’s STAR Software Testing Conference

It is the longest testing conference consisting of three different conferences viz STAREAST, STARWEST, and the STARCANADA taking place all throughout the year

Star East

Date : April 29 to May 4th
Location : Orlando, FL, USA
Twitter: @TechWell, #STAREAST

STAR West

Date : September 30-October 5th
Location: Anaheim, California, USA
Website: starwest.techwell.com

STAR Canada

Date: October 14 to 19th
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Twitter: @TechWell, #STARCANADA

9. WeTest

Date: September 2018th
Location: Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand
Website: wetest.co.nz
Twitter: @WeTestNZ

10. EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference

The most famous European conferences, as called, would be celebrating 25 years of EuroSTAR conferences, with its 26th conference.

Date : November 12 to 15th
Location : Hague, Netherlands
Website : conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/
Twitter: @esconfs, #esconfs

11. KWSQA Targeting Quality 2018

Kitchener-Waterloo Software Quality Association (KWSQA) deals with the professional development of software testing and QA

Date: September 24–25th
Location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Web: kwsqa.org/tq2018/
Twitter: @KWSQA

12. American Software Testing Qualifications Board conference

Date: September 15th
Location: Irvine, California, USA
Web: http://istqb.org/istqb-where-you-are/your-local-member-board/american-software-testing-qualifications-board-astqb.html
Twitter: @astqb / #ASTQB

This might be helpful to you, check this out - Appium Automation Tutorial: A Detailed Guide To Appium Testing

13. Atlassian Summit Europe

It is Atlassian’s annual user conference and features a wide variety of developer bootcamp.

Date: September 3–5th
Location : Sunny Barcelona
Website: atlassian.com/company/events/summit-europe/watch-sessions/2017/featured/keynote

14. CopenhagenContext

QA professionals, software testers, managers, directors, developers, engineers and anyone interested can attend this.

Date: September 17–21st
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Web: CopenhagenContext
Twitter: @CPHcontext

Check this out: A Complete End to End (E2E) Testing Tutorial- Comprehensive Guide With Examples and Best Practices

15. Google Test Automation Conference (GTAC)

With its debut in 2016, the conference is primarily for software engineers and testers.

Date: Not yet released
Location: London, UK
Website : developers.google.com/google-test-automation-conference
Twitter: @googletesting

Hope you must have decided by now which conference you are going to attend this year. Don’t forget to let us know in the comments below which testing conference are you going to attend.

5 Tips On Choosing The Right Browser List For Cross Browser Testing

Pratibha Sangam — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 12:56:58 +0000

Cross browser testing is the process of testing your web application across different browsers and ensure its compatibility with all major browsers and devices. The process also involves checking the functionality and design (screen size, screen resolution and its layout) of the web application. It’s a staple of every testing process.

However it is not easy as it sounds. The number of browser along with its numerous versions on internet today is mind boggling. And testing them all one by one is nothing less than a nightmare.

So for product managers, developers and testers the important question is, how can we match up with this fast growing technology to test each and every update on each and every browsers day-in and day-out. Aah! Mind-numbing,right? I believe doing this is not possible every time.

So what should be done now?

Worried! Take a pause.

This post is all about how you can manage this tricky problem.. Here are some ways and means by which you can choose which specific browser and devices you should test.

1. Based on Popularity of Browsers and Devices

Each day a new update knocks the door of technology. Whether it’s a newer version of an already existing application or a completely new application, we need to consider it all.

The question that comes here is ‘Do we need to test them too?’.
Let’s take it objectively. We cannot test on each and every one of browsers and devices that can be used to access the internet.

Realistically, out of those millions of devices, there are only few which rules the techno world. We need to prioritize our testing based on this popularity. Our objective is to get the highest possible device test coverage in shortest amount of effort.

For Example, the top desktop browsers are latest 5 versions of Chrome, Firefox and IE (for windows users) or Safari (for macOS users); mobile browsers include Chrome, Safari and default samsung mobile browsers.

The popularity also varies from region to region as well. So, if a browser is popular in North America doesn’t imply that it will be popular in Europe too. People have different tastes and priorities depending upon the geo location. Have a look what these statistics have to offer.

You can stay upto date on latest trends in browser and device popularity by following websites such as statcounter, w3c, wikimedia, user agent ageakdowns, and netmarketshare.

Check this out: Selenium Tutorial- A complete guide on Selenium automation testing

2. Using Google Analytics For Targeting Devices

Google Analytics helps track your user activity and lets you know about your website’s traffic. Google Analytics give you complete insights on user behavior including the browsers and OS they have used to access your app. Using this statistics you can easily set your priority for browser testing. The more you get traffic from a specific browser or OS, the more you are going to prioritize testing of your website on that configuration.

For example, Chrome at the apex of the priority list should be tested first. The image here gives a crip idea of rest of the browsers.

If you are more conversion oriented you can also develop a strategy based on the number of clicks, goal conversions and even bounce rates. You can then set the priority for your testing and formulate a perfect cross browser testing strategy.

GA also analyses its audience based on topography, demographic, psychographic and so on. Depending on these stats you can get a list of browsers and devices which are on its highest priority list for testing.

Check this out: Run your Playwright test scripts instantly on 50+ browser and OS combinations using the LambdaTest cloud.

3. Test The Older Ones Too!

Not everyone stays upto date with latest browser releases. Many internet users are still using old default browsers and browser versions that come with their operating system. Internet Explorer, the most difficult browser to develop websites for, is notoriously popular because of this simple fact.

Many users cannot or would not update their browsers especially enterprise users who are using very secure machines or browser dependent enterprise apps.

All this makes it important for you to test on older versions as well. You can prioritize the exact versions based on your traffic, audience analysis, and user feedbacks.

4. Educated Guesses Based on Audience

Experience matters. There are a number of factors that define an audience’s consumption of your website. If you are media website, mobile browsers are a priority for you, similarly if you are B2B oriented webapp, desktop chrome and firefox browser are your priority.

Some call it common sense and just leave it at that, however I believe that each assumption can be backed by data. The only challenge is to seek the answers to the right questions.

What is your audience’s demographics?
What is the preferred media accessing device of your targeted demographics?
What is the location of your audience? What devices are popular in those locations?
What is the problem your app can solve for your users and how your app can best solve it?

Check this out: A Complete End to End (E2E) Testing Tutorial- Comprehensive Guide With Examples and Best Practices

5. Support Issues

Your customers may mention few browsers or devices which creates problem again and again. These Issues need to be resolved at its latest so should be kept at its highest priority list of testing.

Emoji Compatibility With Browsers

Pratibha Sangam — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 11:59:42 +0000

What happens when you are chit chatting and ran out of words? Or facing the urge to keep up with the twitter word limit maintaining your emotions? In every way, digital media is relying on Emojis. The ultimate hero that always came at your aid when you run out of words. The enormous use of emoticons in the past years has explained how important they are to us in today’s world.

Be it a bubbly conversation with your friend or a formal discussion with your colleague emojis find its place at every corner. For this activity both the ends should have an emoji compatibility browser else you might face situations you have never imagined.

With each update in browser or apps there is a number of enhancements in the attribute and modification in the codes which was absent in the prior versions. This creates a problem when you are using an older version of the application. The emoji appear as an empty box or something weird. The reason for this incompatibility is that there are many browsers on board and each have a different way of rendering the fonts and images.

Consider a situation when your browser is not emoji compatible and you got a text saying

What would you get? Clueless?

Read this now.

Now you know what to get home? This is just one example of emoji incompatibility. Many of these kinds create lots of confusion and annoyance among the users. If this occurs again and again what would you do?

Leave it on the users and let them conjecture. Indecorous!

Check this out: Agile Testing Tutorial: A Comprehensive Guide With Examples and Best Practices

Need of Emoji Compatibility

While chatting, reading a mail, researching something on a blog, or reading some stuff on social media you might have encountered [] in the middle of the conversation or content. If you haven’t then you’re most probably using the most compatible tech else you’ll know how these things irritate us or sometimes cause a very bad impression.

See the example below. The person sending the emojis didn’t have a bad intention of saying anything, however, with the emoticons incompatibility that turned out to be pretty weird. This is where you’ll regret not having emoji compatibility in browsers or apps that you’re using.

Devices and emoji format support

Each and every device and browser have their own way of rendering an emoji, which in turn depends on the software they support. This difference in rendering can change the meaning of the text.

Check out this table below which gives a list of devices with different emoji compatibility under the same name.

Check this out: Ad Hoc Testing: A Comprehensive Guide With Examples and Best Practices

Browsers that support emoji

Not all browsers support emojis here are the list of browsers that support emojis on different OS

Defining an emoji

To define each emoji there a unicode standard which is always in English. Depending on these Unicodes the device renders them with the help of an application Emoji Support library and displays the correct emoji for the same.

Apart from the unicode there are different names for same emoji on different browsers.
For example, Zeny Face (? Grinning Face With One Large and One Small Eye) is also known as:

? Crazy Eyes
? Excited
? Wild

How to avoid browser emoji incompatibility ?

Google has come up with the solution to this incompatibility. EmojiCompat library is the name. EmojiCompat library by Google keeps a track of emoji updates on every older OS versions. Since the newer emojis are not backward compatible, it appears as [] in older versions. EmojiCompat library prevents your app from showing [] in place of the specific emoji character thus giving you a seamless experience with browsers and apps. But the problem with EmojiComoat is that it’s not the core function of Android, so every developer has to integrate it to the app individually.

Check this out: Data Driven Testing: A Comprehensive Guide With Examples and Best Practices

How to configure EmojiCompat library?

There are two different fonts configuration for emoji compatibility.

Downloadable fonts configuration
Bundled fonts configuration

Downloadable fonts configuration

If this configuration do not exist in the device, you need to download these emoji fonts on the run time.

Add the following support library in the build.guide file of application.

compile "com.android.support:support-emoji:$version"

Now initialize the EmojiCompat using the following codes

class MyApplication: Application() {

    override fun onCreate() {
           super.onCreate()
           val fontRequest = FontRequest(
                   "com.google.android.gms.fonts",
                   "com.google.android.gms",
                   "Noto Color Emoji Compat", R.array.com_google_android_gms_fonts_certs)
           val config = FontRequestEmojiCompatConfig(this, fontRequest)
           // other config settings......
           EmojiCompat.init(config)
       }
    }

Bundled fonts configuration

Your device or your app already has the EmojiCompat package. To use this configuration:

Add the following support library in the build.guide file of application.

compile "com.android.support:support-emoji-bundled:$version"

Now initialize the EmojiCompat using the following codes

class MyApplication : Application() {
       override fun onCreate() {
           super.onCreate()
           val config = BundledEmojiCompatConfig(this)
           EmojiCompat.init(config)
       }class MyApplication : Application() {

    override fun onCreate() {
            super.onCreate()

    val config = BundledEmojiCompatConfig(this)
            EmojiCompat.init(config)
        }
    }

Now the application is ready to use the EmojiCompat library.

Having fixed the issue of emoji compatibility in list of browsers and devices you need to be sure if they are really made compatible? For this you need to test on various browsers, devices, OSes, and browser versions. You can test the same using LambdaTest and check if your browser renders the emojis you have used.