How often do we look at an application and wonder what the people who were designing it were thinking? When jumping through hoops that seem odd or out of place, it's easy to ask "how can this have been designed this way?!" If it makes you feel better, there are people who research the areas of Usability and User Experience (UX) specifically. Michael Larsen talks with Charlotte Dijksman of Test Birds and Nick Leal of Qualitest about the good, the bad and the just plain out there of Usability and UX.
This time on The Testing Show, Matthew Heusser and Michael Larsen welcome Mahesh Chikane and Smita Mishra to talk about the unique challenges and opportunities facing the software testing community in India.
SAP (Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing) is a large suite of software products best described as being an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Many large scale companies use SAP to cover a variety of processes related to accounting, finance and commerce, as well as a variety of other functions. While a tester may not be working directly with it, it's a very good bet that if you visit sites that are large enough, you are absolutely interacting with a SAP system(s) somewhere. For this episode, Matthew Heusser and Michael Larsen welcome Simon Evans to talk about all things SAP, the ways in which it shows up in so many places, and ways that testers can level up and come to grips with this large ecosystem of inter-related systems.
We are all familiar with stress testing when we put an application under load or negative conditions but what about when we put ourselves under those same conditions? Rachel Kibler and Elle Gee join Matthew Heusser and Michael Larsen to talk about this more human element of software testing that often gets overlooked and how applying it to our everyday testing activities might help us do better testing overall.
DevOps is a common term and one that seems to be hard to pin down or to define. Additionally, it seems that for many, the idea behind DevOps seems to be an elimination of testers or testing. Our guests Lisa Crispin of mabl and Jessica Ingrassellino of Salesforce.org are here to discuss how software testers are indeed important in the process of DevOps and some ways we can get involved in ways we may not have considered. A key element is Observability (#olly) and we get into the details of considering observability as part of the DevTestOps equation.
Over the past several decades, we have witnessed many changes in the way that we do things. Catalogs are mostly things of the past, as are phone books, a crew of phone operators and a variety of other services that we may often take for granted today. Each of those transformations, however have gone through their share of growing pains to bring us where we are today and truth be told, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. For this episode, Matt Heusser and Michael Larsen welcome Shachar Schiff and Gerie Owen to talk about the benefits of digital transformations, where things have gone well, where things have gone not so well and a few surprises along the way. In addition, they discuss the continuous nature of digital transformation and the software testers unique role in that process:
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are the hip buzzwords at the moment and if you listen to enough people, they are the hot new technologies that are poised to make software testers obsolete. Is that accurate? Well, yes and no. More of a “kind of but not really”. Today, Matt Heusser and Michael Larsen chat with Daniel Geater and Jason Arbon to get to the bottom of this “AI and Machine Learning” thing. Is it real? It sure is. Is it going to transform testing? Potentially yes? Should testers be scared? Absolutely not. There are opportunities galore with this AI/ML world and Daniel and Jason are happy to tell you all about them.
Today as we see the ideas of server-less architecture, cloud-based implementations and more distributed services come into play, the way that we think of performance and performance testing is changing. Nevertheless, it’s still critical and can be a make or break element of a site or applications suffers or demise. To talk about the ways that performance impacts testers as well as ways to discuss the broader implications of the changing performance space, Scott Barber and Caleb Billingsley join Matt Heusser and Michael Larsen to chat about ways to have conversations with those who make the larger decisions. Also, the conversation covers ways to give those who are not as familiar with the performance space a point of reference to get in and start tuning up their performance game.
Over the years, a variety of metrics have been gathered to measure and determine how well or how poorly the processes of software quality and software delivery have progressed. Sometimes these metrics are helpful. A lot of the time they are benign or irrelevant. Sometimes they can actually be hurtful or stymie progress, which defeats their purpose altogether. Matt and Michael welcome Tom Cagley and Nausheen Sayed to discuss meaningful metric, what they are, how to find them, how to make them work for us, and we discuss some metrics train wrecks.
As the software delivery process matures and grows, a variety of teams are forming and becoming part of the everyday testing landscape. These teams may or may not resemble anything that many testers are familiar with. New roles and responsibilities are coming into play, with many software testers taking on roles such as Scrum-master, Release Manager, Product Owner and other positions that would have been seen as out of the ordinary for testers a decade or so ago. The role are blending, the responsibilities are blending, so how does a tester determine what the best course of action is and how to participate in this brave new world? Perze Ababa, Paul Grizzaffi, Matthew Heusser, Michael Larsen, Gerie Owen and Peter Varhol all gather together to consider what makes for good testing teams and good teams in general.
August is a busy time of year for software testing conferences (not to mention conferences in other industries). This month, we decided that, with everyone heading off to conferences hither and yon that we would dedicate a show to the topic, and we have done exactly that. Anna Royzman (Test Masters Academy), Claire Moss (DevOps Days) and Mike Lyles (Software Test Professionals) join us as guests in their capacity as conference organizers, speakers and attendees (not necessarily in that order) to riff on Conferences and Conferring with Matthew Heusser, Michael Larsen and Perez Ababa. Want to know where to go, what format to take part in or if you want to try your hand at speaking/presenting? We’ve got something for all those bases!
Like many software users, it’s a good bet that you received a lot of pop-up messages or emails telling you that you had to log in to various sites and read a number of new statements and provide Consent to companies to let you use their services. If that’s how it seemed, you are not alone, there was indeed a lot of that, and it was for a very specific purpose. After Many of 2018, individuals and companies doing business with or using data belonging to anyone residing in the European Union had to, by law, make it clear that users had rights concerning how their data was being used and that they had choices as to what they could do about it. These changes are called The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR and is now law regarding data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA).
On today’s show, we welcome Daniel Leigh who helps us understand GDPR a little better, what the ramifications of these new laws are, what they mean to companies doing business in or dealing with data relating to anyone residing in the EU, what they mean for software development and data protection and privacy, and how software testers can help make a difference in this new reality of consent and privacy.
Additionally, in our news segment, what would it have cost various companies like Yahoo, eBay, and Equifax, based on how they responded to their data breaches in the past, were they subject to the new GDPR rules?
It seems that "Automating Everything" is an implicit of not an explicit goal in many organizations. In the process of trying, many projects fail in accomplishing this goal. Our guest Graeme Harvey gives a popular talk about this and takes an interesting journey on approaching and discussing how to do this via comparisons to the book and movie "The Martian". Graeme joins Perze Ababa, Matt Heusser, Michael Larsen, Gerie Owen and Peter Varhol to riff on ideas from the book and movie and how to use these principles in our everyday automating experiences.
Also, in our news segment, it seems Elon Musk is realizing that "automating all the things" can actually be a detriment as it has been a major cause of impact to the delayed delivery of the Tesla Model 3.
Usability is a big deal with applications and application "stickiness". The better the Usability, the more likely an application will be successfully adopted. This week, Smita Mishra of QAZone Infosystems and Fandoro (and a lot of other things) joins Matthew Heusser, Jessica Ingrasselino, Michael Larsen and Gerie Owen to discuss what makes applications painful to use and discuss methods for making them less painful. We also discuss a variety of ways that testers can get a leg up on Usability as an advocacy platform and ways in which to encourage good UX.
Also, in our news segment, we address five possible usability issues with Electronic Health Records that go beyond frustration issues with applications. These can literally be a matter of life or death!
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Continuous Testing. Sounds cool, doesn't it? The bigger question, though, is "What does is it really mean?" In the DevOps world, it's something that more and more organizations are hoping that they can get a handle on, and Gerie Owen joins Matthew Heusser and Michael Larsen to talk about her experiences with Continuous Testing, DevOps and the literal sea change that such an endeavor taking on Continuous Testing actually is.
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In this episode of The Testing Show, we welcome Jason McIvor to talk about the upcoming changes in the Telecom Testing world. Specifically, we look at the rollout of the 5G standard and what it will mean to consumers both in speed as well as the level of ubiquity. Jason discusses new uses for Telecom beyond the consumer space and the introduction of autonomous vehicles and Augmented Reality for both consumer purposes (games, certainly) as well as more unique angles (real time blueprints of buildings and electrical gas lines for firefighters). In addition, Jason shares with Matt and Michael his view of the changing marketplace for testing in the telecom sphere and how people who are interested can get involved.
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In this episode, we are joined by Jeffrey Wheat, Director of Cyber Operations for QualiTest Group. Jeffrey spoke with Perze Alaba, Jessica Ingrassellino, Matthew Heusser and Michael Larsen about the changing nature of security, security vulnerabilities and ways that the discussion around Security topics can be handled more directly and earlier in the software development process. Also in our news segment, what happens when a security issue affects nearly every current version of a CPU, even when the machines are not turned on?
In this episode, we conclude our interview with CodeNewbie founder Saron Yitbarek. We discuss the value of shared learning through the Ruby Book Club, discuss what makes the Codeland Conference unique, and talk about the challenges and opportunities of sharing our own stories and coding journeys. We also turn the tables on Saron and ask her to play a version of her own podcast’s “Rapid Fire Fill in The Blank”.
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Welcome to 2018! It’s a new Year and with a new year many people make New Year’s Resolutions. Learning how to code is a frequent resolution choice, so Jessica Ingrassellino and Michael Larsen kick off the new year by talking with Saron Yitbarek, the founder of the CodeNewbie Podcast, CodeNewbie Community and the Codeland Conference, all initiatives based around helping and supporting people new to programming and helping hem navigate their way on their coding journey.
Saron shares her journey, the highs and lows, the excitement and the ever present frustrations, and the fact that programming is one of those areas where you are not penalized for not being 100% right all of the time right off the bat.
This is Part 1 of a two part series. Part 2 will be posted in two weeks.
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As we close out the year that was 2017, we welcome Gwen Dobson to The Testing Show to talk about Hiring Testers and Test Managers, the challenges and changes that re happening in the market, the issues and frustrations many of us face as we look for new opportunities, and all that that entails. Matt Heusser, Jessica Ingrasselino and Michael Larsen also join in with their own takes on entering the testing world through the side door, having conversations about money and skill, and not selling short the very real-life experiences and opportunities from learning in other work and experience capacities that don’t necessarily make sense as part of a bullet list of testing skills.
Also, in our news segment, in several states and metropolitan job areas, it is now illegal to ask about your salary history. How do you approach such a discussion if that’s the case?
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This week we are joined by Katrina Clokie, author of “A Practical Guide to Testing in DevOps” to talk about the growth of DevOps, which organizations are actually doing it (and how well/completely they are), and the strange three-way handshake that happens with Development, Operations and Testing. If you have been curious about the ins and outs of testing in DevOps, we have you covered this week.
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It’s a common expression to hear people say that we should “get involved in the broader testing community” but what does that actually mean? In today’s episode, Jessica Ingrassellino, Matthew Heusser and Michael Larsen get into the specifics of that topic with Melissa Tondi, president of Software Quality Association of Denver (SQuAD). As all of the above are veterans of either participating in or hosting community meetups, we talk about how to make sure that you are meeting the expectations of your members, ways to keep them engaged and to help grow those community ties.
Also, in Software Testing news, have you taken steps to protect yourself from the KRACK attacks? If not, you may want to take a look at your WPA2 devices and remedy that.
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We conclude our two part series by talking about Code Review as a Service, who might need such a thing, what it promises and how it corresponds with what organizations are actually doing. As was the case last week, we share opinions and talk about the fact that marketing often drives the perception, but the devil is always in the details and the details may not be as compelling or flashy but they are relevant and more times than not really tell a fuller story of what is going on.
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For this set of two shows, we decided to do a forum of just us regulars, and we were going to look at a couple of news stories. Those stories turned out to be the bulk of an extended conversation. We realized that the theme in all of them were the claims that companies made vs. what actually happens in workplaces and organizations.
Needless to say, this is an opinionated set of shows this go around as we discuss the promise of Machine Learning and what it actually delivers. We look at it in the light of other promises made over the past fifty years and how, often, it’s not the best idea that wins the day, but the first idea to gain traction that does.
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We are back with Peter Varhol for Part 2 of our discussion on Machine Learning and AI. In this episode, we pick up with Peter and discuss the pitfalls of machine learning algorithms, where they can help us and where they often fail us. Also, what is the role of the tester and testing in machine learning and AI? How intimately involved with the problem domain do testers need to be? How can they learn to understand the analytical parts and what they need to accomplish within that problem domain.
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