Explore It!

by Elisabeth Hendrickson

TOC | Early Praise for Explore It! 👉

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Preface

Who Is This Book For?

How This Book Is Organized

Online Resources

I. Establishing Foundations

1. On Testing and Exploration

• Two Sides of Testing
• Essential Elements of Exploratory Testing
• Working in Time-Boxed Sessions
• Practice Sessions

2. Charter Your Explorations

• Chartering the Expedition
• A Simple Charter Template
• Good Charters
• Generating Charters
• The Nightmare Headline Game
• Planning Charters
• Practice Sessions

3. Observe the Details

• But Did You See the Moonwalking Bear?
• Digging Deeper
• Testability and Making the Invisible Visible
• Consoles and Logs
• Practice Sessions

4. Find Interesting Variations

• Variables Are Things That Vary
• Subtle Variables, Big Disasters
• Identifying Variables
• Variables! They’re Everywhere!
• Practice Sessions

5. Evaluate Results

• Never and Always
• Alternative Resources
• Approximations
• Practice Sessions

II. Adding Dimensions

6. Vary Sequences and Interactions

• Nouns and Verbs
• Random Navigation
• Personas
• Practice Sessions

7. Explore Entities and Their Relationships

• Recognizing Entities, Attributes, and Dependencies
• CRUD: Create, Read, Update, Delete
• Following the Data
• Practice Sessions

8. Discover States and Transitions

• Recognizing States and Events
• Diagramming a State Model
• Exploring with State Models
• Changing the Representation: State Tables
• Practice Sessions

9. Explore the Ecosystem

• Diagramming the Ecosystem
• Trust Boundaries
• What If?
• Follow the Data
• Practice Sessions

III. Putting It in Context

10. Explore When There Is No User Interface

• Exploring an API
• Exploring a Programming Language
• Exploring a Web Service
• Characterizing Bugs
• Practice Sessions

11. Explore an Existing System

• Starting with a Recon Session
• Sharing Observations
• Interviewing Stakeholders to Gather Questions
• Selecting Techniques
• Recording Your Findings
• What About the Dreaded Unreproducible Bugs?
• Practice Sessions

12. Explore Requirements

• Getting Into the Requirements Meeting
• In the Requirements Meeting
• Charter During Requirements Discussions
• Active Reading
• Practice Sessions

13. Integrate Exploration Throughout

• Exploring as Part of Your Test Strategy
• Paired Exploration
• Discovering Systemic Sources of Problems
• Estimating Exploration
• How to Tell When You Have Explored Enough
• Debriefing Stakeholders
• Capturing Useful Nuggets of Wisdom
• Practice Sessions

A1. Interviewing for Exploratory Testing Skills

Paired Exploratory Testing as Part of an Interview

Assessing the Candidates

A2. Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet

General Heuristics

Web Heuristics

Bibliography

Copyright © 2014, The Pragmatic Bookshelf.

TOC | Early Praise for Explore It! 👉

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