Exploratory testing with the help of a test tool

Abstract: Exploratory testing (ET) is a test technique used to test software. It is a free way (compared to scripted test) of testing, where the tester takes notes during the test session. The tester has the option to select his own way when testing the software, he learns and tests at the same time. Notes are the result from the test session and are used to see what has been tested, e.g. the outcome and the test data. The notes also become the test case. Because the notes are important, the idea was to find a tool that can help the tester taking notes, but not to replace the tester. The tool is meant to make the notes better - more information without increasing the work for the tester. The software in this case are web-pages. A web-page can show information to an external user but today more and more web-pages are interacting with the user. It could be products to buy, booking a trip or online banking. The first step was to find and investigate tools that already exists on the market. Specific criteria for the tools was set during the investigation and they were meant to make exploratory testing stronger, to way up for the claimed weak parts of ET. The conclusion was that none of the tested tools fulfilled all of the criteria, the missing part was how to collect information from the testing without making the tester write everything down. To get a tool that can automatically collect information, a Firefox add-on was implemented. The Firefox add-on can collect information from the testing automatically in order for the tester to concentrate on the actual testing, learning and validating the software. The Firefox add-on that was implemented is a prototype to test the concept of logging in- and outputs from a web-page during exploratory testing. ETnote is the work name for the prototype.