March 2021 Summaries

Kate Green is a woman in the testing community who has made significant contributions to her field through her education background and years of experience managing tech teams. She started out as an elementary school teacher before transitioning into software development and eventually becoming an engineering leader with over 20 years of industry experience. Kate's journey highlights the importance of broadening one's understanding and embracing new challenges, which she credits with helping her find a sense of purpose in testing. With a non-traditional background, Kate was drawn to test automation, where she could apply her skills to make developers' lives easier. As a woman in tech, Kate faces challenges but finds support and empowerment through the testing community, particularly from women like Lisa Crispin, Angie Jones, and Maaret Pyhäjärvi. Throughout her career, Kate has achieved notable successes, including reimagining an API test suite and building a CSS framework for two newspapers. Currently leading a product team at Wirewheel, a data privacy company, Kate continues to educate through speaking engagements and blogging, sharing her advice with entry-level software engineers and emphasizing the importance of planning for failure in order to increase code resilience.

Flawless digital experiences are crucial for retail and e-commerce companies as online shopping has become the norm. Customer experience is key to avoiding lost customers and revenue opportunities. Retailers aim to increase conversion rates by testing various aspects of their checkout flows, including analytics that feed from user activities. To achieve this, testers can help ensure signals are fired correctly and analytics send accurate information. By focusing on the most important parts of the business, such as conversion lift, attribution, and analytics, companies can maximize the value of testing in retail and e-commerce.

Automated UI testing can be overwhelming with numerous tools and frameworks available, including Selenium, Appium, Cypress, Playwright, Puppeteer, Test Cafe, Sauce Labs, Espresso, XCUITest, Android, iOS, and various programming languages. Developers must consider their specific needs, such as desktop web applications or mobile apps, and choose a framework that supports their testing strategy. Some tools offer more developer-centric approaches, while others provide broader browser support. It's essential to research each option, consider factors like ease of use and community support, and work with an experienced QA Engineer or developer to find the best fit for their application. With the right approach and tooling, automated UI testing can help ensure high-quality software delivery.

Functional testing focuses on verifying an application's functionality against its requirements and specifications, whereas non-functional testing examines how well or poorly an application behaves, including aspects such as performance, security, scalability, compatibility, user experience, and localization. Functional testing techniques include unit testing, acceptance testing, integration testing, regression testing, and visual testing, which test various components of the application at different levels, from individual units to entire workflows. Non-functional testing encompasses performance testing, security testing, compatibility testing, and user experience testing, each aimed at evaluating specific aspects of an application's behavior. Automation is crucial for both types of testing due to their complexity and the need to cover a wide range of scenarios, making test automation tools essential for delivering effective testing results.

Maaret Pyhäjärvi is a highly experienced and respected woman in the testing community with over 25 years of career spanning multiple companies, industries, and technologies. As principal test engineer at Vaisala, she has developed expertise in exploratory testing and emphasizes the importance of learning quickly and effectively. Maaret attributes her success to enjoying hands-on learning and figuring out new things, rather than just reading books. She has faced unique challenges as a woman in tech, including feeling invisible and receiving different types of feedback, but feels fiercely protective of other women and is committed to stepping up for them when needed. Maaret's advice to women starting in testing is to learn from others who have gone before you and find mentors who can show you the way. She has been inspired by many others, including Lisa Crispin and Parveen Khan, and values practical conversations about how to make things better. Maaret has received international recognition for her work, including the EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award and the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person, but feels most grateful for the opportunity to leave a lasting positive impact on the testing community.

Women in Testing: Julia Pottinger` highlights the contributions of talented women in the testing community, particularly Julia Pottinger, who shares her experience as a woman in technology. Growing up in Jamaica without access to computers, Julia discovered programming in Pascal and pursued a career in computer science. She credits an internship at QualityWorks for changing her career path. Today, Julia leads training and development programs around testing best practices and frequently speaks at events, advocating for women's representation in the industry. Julia emphasizes the importance of self-advocacy, building confidence, and finding communities to support growth and advancement in one's career. Her upcoming talk at SauceCon 2021 will focus on creating an effective test automation strategy.

Suman Bala is a talented woman in the testing community who has made a significant impact through her intentional focus on testing as its own specialty. With over a decade of experience, she has carved a career path in testing and has been coaching teams on technical testing, automation best practices, and strategies for improving quality. As a QA Lead at Sky in the UK, Suman drives quality best practices and is an emerging accessibility advocate, co-founding the accessibility guild at Sky. She believes that women need to be their own advocates and uplift each other to achieve balance in the industry. Suman has found inspiration from virtual events and mentorship from other women in testing, including Angie Jones, who she considers one of her most important role models. She is proud of educating the next generation of testers through a bootcamp sponsored by the UK Government and aims to inspire more women to enter the field of testing. Suman will be speaking at SauceCon 2021 about flaky tests and how teams can improve their product's reliability by listening to their test results.

Here is a neutral and interesting summary of the provided text in one paragraph: Automated testing is a technique that uses commands to execute test cases through browser automation frameworks. It has become an essential necessity for companies to create a great online presence, moving from manual to automated testing processes over the last decade. Various automated testing tools are available, including Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, TestCafe, Webdriver.io, and Puppeteer, each with its own strengths and use cases. Automated testing improves products by saving time and money, allowing developers to focus on application functions, reducing defects, and scaling faster. It also creates digital confidence, enabling companies to release products with confidence, providing a great user experience, and reducing risk. Best practices for automated testing include choosing the right test automation framework, using manual testing when necessary, and emphasizing a culture of digital confidence.