Explore It!

Cover......Page 1
Table of Contents......Page 8
Foreword......Page 12
Acknowledgments......Page 14
Preface......Page 16
How This Book Is Organized......Page 17
Online Resources......Page 18
Part I— Establishing Foundations......Page 19
1. On Testing and Exploration......Page 20
Two Sides of Testing......Page 21
Essential Elements of Exploratory Testing......Page 23
Working in Time-Boxed Sessions......Page 24
Practice Sessions......Page 25
Chartering the Expedition......Page 27
A Simple Charter Template......Page 29
Good Charters......Page 31
Generating Charters......Page 32
The Nightmare Headline Game......Page 37
Practice Sessions......Page 40
But Did You See the Moonwalking Bear?......Page 41
Digging Deeper......Page 43
Testability and Making the Invisible Visible......Page 46
Consoles and Logs......Page 47
Practice Sessions......Page 48
4. Find Interesting Variations......Page 49
Variables Are Things That Vary......Page 50
Subtle Variables, Big Disasters......Page 52
Identifying Variables......Page 54
Practice Sessions......Page 60
5. Evaluate Results......Page 62
Never and Always......Page 63
Alternative Resources......Page 65
Approximations......Page 67
Practice Sessions......Page 70
Part II— Adding Dimensions......Page 72
6. Vary Sequences and Interactions......Page 73
Nouns and Verbs......Page 74
Random Navigation......Page 76
Personas......Page 77
Practice Sessions......Page 78
Recognizing Entities, Attributes, and Dependencies......Page 80
CRUD: Create, Read, Update, Delete......Page 83
Practice Sessions......Page 86
8. Discover States and Transitions......Page 88
Recognizing States and Events......Page 89
Diagramming a State Model......Page 91
Exploring with State Models......Page 93
Changing the Representation: State Tables......Page 95
Practice Sessions......Page 98
Diagramming the Ecosystem......Page 100
Trust Boundaries......Page 105
What If?......Page 106
Follow the Data......Page 108
Practice Sessions......Page 109
Part III— Putting It in Context......Page 110
10. Explore When There Is No User Interface......Page 111
Exploring an API......Page 112
Exploring a Programming Language......Page 114
Exploring a Web Service......Page 116
Characterizing Bugs......Page 118
Practice Sessions......Page 119
Starting with a Recon Session......Page 120
Sharing Observations......Page 123
Interviewing Stakeholders to Gather Questions......Page 125
Recording Your Findings......Page 127
What About the Dreaded Unreproducible Bugs?......Page 128
Practice Sessions......Page 130
12. Explore Requirements......Page 132
Getting Into the Requirements Meeting......Page 133
In the Requirements Meeting......Page 136
Charter During Requirements Discussions......Page 139
Active Reading......Page 141
Practice Sessions......Page 143
Exploring as Part of Your Test Strategy......Page 144
Paired Exploration......Page 148
Discovering Systemic Sources of Problems......Page 149
Estimating Exploration......Page 151
How to Tell When You Have Explored Enough......Page 152
Debriefing Stakeholders......Page 153
Capturing Useful Nuggets of Wisdom......Page 155
Practice Sessions......Page 156
A1. Interviewing for Exploratory Testing Skills......Page 157
Paired Exploratory Testing as Part of an Interview......Page 158
Assessing the Candidates......Page 160
General Heuristics......Page 161
Web Heuristics......Page 166
Bibliography......Page 167
– E –......Page 168
– N –......Page 169
– U –......Page 170
– Z –......Page 171