How important is exploratory testing and visual feedback in your testing process?

[Fraser Colmer [Zephyr]]

Atlassian Users,

Would love your input on how important exploratory testing and visual feedback is in your testing process?

Looking forward to your replies.

[jndeverteuil]

Hello,

I would prefer to always do some exploratory testing before upgrading to another version of an Atlassian product to make sure the process goes without a hitch. Then, visual feedback is fast enough to do quickly that there's not much reason not to do it.

Some exploratory testing with plugins are important also before installing in PROD or before upgrading them. You want to make sure they integrate well with other plugins and that they have not broken anything else. Some plugins could also modify significantly the behaviour of the product. For instance, theming plugins for Confluence can make it almost impossible to revert back. You want to know if you can rollback  before you actually install it in PROD :)

You can even develop a scorecard to evaluate your plugin as part of your exploratory testing!

[Fraser Colmer [Zephyr]]

Julien,

Thanks for your detailed response. I agree that visual feedback should be used when completing your testing. Did you know that 65% of the population are visual learners? Why would you not use it when collaborating and working with a team?

Regarding exploratory testing, I think it is vital that testers are encouraged to try different plugins to create and execute more tests to optimize test coverage without incurring the costs associated with writing and maintaining test cases.

What is your opinion on agile testing?

I think you might enjoy this blog post talking about our discussion.