Hi Jess,
thank you for this overview. I try to continuously improve my test skills since the tests improve my confidence in the code.
I'd like to add one aspect. I found it on a german website. Besides the questions "What is tested" and "When are the tests executed" a third question appears: "Who is the tester?".
There are some kinds of tests the developer himself is responsible for: Unit tests, integration tests, smoke tests, regression tests, ... but some tests should be executed for example by the QA, the stakeholder or the customer: Alpha and beta tests, Usability tests, Accessability tests and more.
It's really important to test your own code but it's also important to be supported by other people, the users, to be sure that your app is working.
This is a good distinction, but it doesn't necessarily sit at the top level with the other questions, because the "who" is often embedded via personas in all the testing levels from unit on up. So from a certain perspective it doesn't matter who is testing since the who can be embedded. HOWEVER..I think your statement was going more towards User acceptance testing, which doesn't mean much to developers, nicely proving your point. Developers consider success as "I fulfilled the written requirements" whereas everyone else considers success as "the customer got what they wanted." So there is necessarily a gap here in conversation on the value of User acceptance testing. But good UAT is necessary for success, business-wise.
I actually dislike the distinction of “who is the tester?”
Software lives and dies by the team, not by the individual. I definitely agree there. As such, testing code, both in an automated and manual fashion, falls collectively to the team and not to an individual. Carving out by role is not super useful, imo.
And I definitely missed a few things here, especially with regard to accessibility and usability testing. Which makes sense - I’ve never touched production front end code. It’s very much a personal blind spot, but there are a number of great resources and points elsewhere in the comments!
I think I understand your point and honestly I agree with it. I don't really use the Who-question to distinct the kind of test, I mean, obviously it's not the fact that a developer executes a test which makes it a unit test.
I just thought of it as a nice extra information. In my experience it's usually not a customer or an end user who executes unit tests. These people test by clicking through the app or at least it's what I think they do ;-). So the "Who" is more like a weak evidence when you ask how to distinct between kinds of tests.
(I have to admit that I maybe missed the topic a little bit but I like the discussion.)
Oh My God! What a big bundle of knowledge this article and these comment-discussions are! I'm elated that I drop-by here.
The article in itself is self-sufficient but these comments are the cherry on the cake.
Thank you so much , the entire community is giving back selflessly!
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Hi Jess,
thank you for this overview. I try to continuously improve my test skills since the tests improve my confidence in the code.
I'd like to add one aspect. I found it on a german website. Besides the questions "What is tested" and "When are the tests executed" a third question appears: "Who is the tester?".
There are some kinds of tests the developer himself is responsible for: Unit tests, integration tests, smoke tests, regression tests, ... but some tests should be executed for example by the QA, the stakeholder or the customer: Alpha and beta tests, Usability tests, Accessability tests and more.
It's really important to test your own code but it's also important to be supported by other people, the users, to be sure that your app is working.
Thank you very much for this great resource.
This is a good distinction, but it doesn't necessarily sit at the top level with the other questions, because the "who" is often embedded via personas in all the testing levels from unit on up. So from a certain perspective it doesn't matter who is testing since the who can be embedded. HOWEVER..I think your statement was going more towards User acceptance testing, which doesn't mean much to developers, nicely proving your point. Developers consider success as "I fulfilled the written requirements" whereas everyone else considers success as "the customer got what they wanted." So there is necessarily a gap here in conversation on the value of User acceptance testing. But good UAT is necessary for success, business-wise.
I actually dislike the distinction of “who is the tester?”
Software lives and dies by the team, not by the individual. I definitely agree there. As such, testing code, both in an automated and manual fashion, falls collectively to the team and not to an individual. Carving out by role is not super useful, imo.
And I definitely missed a few things here, especially with regard to accessibility and usability testing. Which makes sense - I’ve never touched production front end code. It’s very much a personal blind spot, but there are a number of great resources and points elsewhere in the comments!
Hi Jess,
I think I understand your point and honestly I agree with it. I don't really use the Who-question to distinct the kind of test, I mean, obviously it's not the fact that a developer executes a test which makes it a unit test.
I just thought of it as a nice extra information. In my experience it's usually not a customer or an end user who executes unit tests. These people test by clicking through the app or at least it's what I think they do ;-). So the "Who" is more like a weak evidence when you ask how to distinct between kinds of tests.
(I have to admit that I maybe missed the topic a little bit but I like the discussion.)
Oh My God! What a big bundle of knowledge this article and these comment-discussions are! I'm elated that I drop-by here.
The article in itself is self-sufficient but these comments are the cherry on the cake.
Thank you so much , the entire community is giving back selflessly!