test design

Man lifting barbell with heavy weights 6 Steps to Achieve Realistic, Reliable Load TestingSimulating real users’ behavior gives you a transparent picture of your software's load capabilities. To reproduce users' actions accurately, you can use a request flow design from when the system is in the production environment. Here are six steps for achieving the most realistic load for your load testing process.
Two people creating a test strategy document The What, Who, and How of Developing a Test StrategyIn the world of agile, people often think of test strategy documents as outdated or unnecessary. But having a defined plan of action for how you're going to test a system, application, or business function is always useful. Here's how to break that down into what, who, and how so you can understand your tests' purpose.
Espresso being poured into a cup of water and mixing Integrating Threat Modeling into Agile DevelopmentThreat modeling helps you determine where to focus your security testing efforts when building your app. But people often wonder how it can fit into their existing agile software development process. Here are three things you can do to integrate threat modeling into your agile workflow, either early on or mid-project.
Graphic of two people's minds overlapping, showing empathy Bringing Empathy into Quality EngineeringTesters have always been advocates for the end-user. But there are now more opportunities to be that advocate, including emotional intelligence-based testing and role-based testing, which form a critical part of empathetic testing. Building empathy into our software engineering process ends up benefiting everyone.
Top-down and bottom-up arrows Top Down or Bottom Up? Designing Effective Test AutomationTest automation is not necessarily a technical challenge. The real focus is on the structure and design of the tests and their automation, in particular for tests that need to run through the UI. As with software, tests can be designed from the top down or from the bottom up. Which is better for test automation?
Test plan written out Rebuilding Your Test StrategyIf testing is taking awhile and a lot of bugs are getting into production, it's a good idea to review your entire test strategy. Spend some time understanding the current process and what testing is happening through the dev process—not what is outlined in a process wiki, but the work that actually happens.
puzzle Writing Tests: Action Abstraction

Keywords have become a popular way of writing tests. Hans Buwalda used keywords to devise the Action Based Testing method in which tests are written as sequences of “actions” represented with keywords. However, keywords are just a physical representation of actions, and there are other ways to do this.

Image showing a digital wrench as a test tool Lessons Learned in Testing a UI Test Automation ToolHow do you test a tool to be used for automated testing? If a tool executes an automated test that generates keyboard and mouse events to replay user actions, can the test emulate user input and control another instance of the tool to automatically record and play another test? Here's how you test the test tool.