COMP8130 and COMP4130 Adrian Marshall Verification and Validation Exploratory Testing Adrian Marshall

COMP8130 and COMP4130 Adrian Marshall Exploratory Testing Basics What is exploratory testing? Un-scripted testing that is used to explore the system behaviour Exploratory testing has concurrent test design and execution Exploratory testing and James Bach

COMP8130 and COMP4130 Adrian Marshall Advantages and Disadvantages Advantages Greater proportion of testing is conducted in the test execution Test design is promoted by the system behavior More exciting than documenting scripted tests Each test run is different Disadvantages Difficulties repeating the testing Can spend too much time testing one area at the exclusion of others Can sometimes test what was implemented not what was supposed to be implemented

COMP8130 and COMP4130 Adrian Marshall Conducting Exploratory Testing Paired testing 2 people test and throw ideas at each other Document what was conducted Balancing Exploratory testing and scripted testing Planning exploratory testing

COMP8130 and COMP4130 Adrian Marshall Contemplating Exploratory Testing When is it applicable to do exploratory testing? When system behaviour is poorly defined When scripted testing indicates that more testing is required in functional area(s) (from testing metrics) When time is limited

COMP8130 and COMP4130 Adrian Marshall Conducting Exploratory Testing System examples