July 2021 Summaries

There are benefits to running tests locally, such as quickly checking the quality of code and running manual tests for one-off issues. However, there are drawbacks to relying solely on local testing, including reduced browser support, lack of coverage across different browser/OS combinations, testing becoming a bottleneck, and a lack of accountability for mobile devices. These limitations can result in poor app quality and slow release times. To overcome these challenges, it is recommended to execute tests through an external test infrastructure, such as the Sauce Labs Continuous Testing Cloud, which provides comprehensive coverage, scalability, and analytics to ensure high-quality app delivery at scale.

The partnership between Deque Systems, Inc. and Sauce Labs enables software developers to easily integrate accessibility testing into their quality processes, giving both testers and developers increased awareness and visibility into accessibility signals throughout the software development process. Accessibility is crucial for equal access, allowing anyone to use software without barriers. The World Health Organization estimates that over 1 billion people have a disability, making digital inaccessibility a significant issue. Lawsuits related to accessibility are becoming more frequent and costly, making it a risk management issue businesses must face. Deque and Sauce Labs' partnership provides an easy way for developers to automate accessibility testing, gaining visibility into accessibility issues as part of their end-to-end testing programs. This solution prioritizes the top accessibility concerns, guiding teams toward fixing them, and will eventually expand to cover mobile web and native app capabilities.

Testing in production means that new code changes are tested on live user traffic rather than in a staging environment. This approach can improve the quality assurance process by ensuring that features work as expected in the real-world usage environment, eliminating the need for a separate staging area. By testing in production, Quality Assurance engineers can avoid wasting effort on setting up and maintaining a staging test environment, which is often difficult to replicate the actual use environment. Companies like Google, Netflix, and Amazon already use production testing as part of their DevOps practices. However, this approach requires that the production code affected by new changes is resilient enough to handle any testing-induced issues, and may add complexity if only a limited scope of code is being tested. Selenium and Appium are popular tools used for implementation, with Selenium being used for browser UIs and Appium for mobile apps. To implement TIP, developers can use utility classes to abstract away repetitive tasks and tests from drivers, making it easier to maintain and update the test repository.

The Android operating system has grown significantly since its introduction in 2009, with over 71% market share today. As a result, testing for Android devices is crucial to ensure compatibility and quality. Manual testing involves putting an application on a physical device and running it end-to-end, while compatibility testing addresses the vast range of Android devices and their varying specifications. Automated testing using frameworks such as Selenium, Appium, and Espresso can be used to perform user interface tests and unit tests, which isolate individual methods of code to exercise small bits of logic. Continuous Integration systems facilitate automated testing and performance testing, including load testing and soak testing, while Security Testing involves scanning source code and penetration testing. Sauce Labs provides a cloud-based platform for Android app testing, offering virtual devices, automation tools, and integrations with CI servers.

Selenium is a widely used and popular test automation framework for web applications, known for its flexibility, scalability, and vendor-agnostic approach. With over twenty years of growth and development, Selenium has expanded from a single browser execution technology to a full suite of products that combine to create something much more powerful. Its open-source nature makes it accessible to a wide range of users, and various frameworks have been developed on top of the core Selenium project. Selenium's WebDriver technology allows for interaction with browsers as if they were human, enabling a range of testing scenarios, including functional test automation, compatibility testing, visual testing, and performance/load testing. The framework provides a robust infrastructure to organize and manage tests, report statistics, and integrate with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery systems. With its popularity and widespread adoption, Selenium is often the tool of choice for web application testing, offering a range of benefits, including ease of use, flexibility, and scalability.

Sauce Labs has acquired Backtrace, a provider of best-in-class error monitoring solutions, to extend its capabilities into production environments and enable customers to receive quality signals throughout the entire software development lifecycle. This acquisition will allow developers to quickly identify and remediate bugs in production while also leveraging insights to improve test coverage during development and integration phases. The combination of Sauce Labs and Backtrace will provide a comprehensive solution for error monitoring, complementing automated test frameworks such as Selenium and Appium, and enabling companies to release code faster with confidence. With the acquisition, customers will benefit from a best-in-class monitoring solution and the ability to mitigate application risk and improve digital quality.