Increasing productivity in software testing : Visualizing and managingarbitrarily structured messages and message queues to increase productivity andusability

Abstract: This thesis investigates how data sources, message queues, and messages can be generalized in such way that it allows for easy configuration and setup in a frontend visualization application. It also includes increasing the productivity of the application testers and the usability of the user interface. An analysis of one of Dewire’s test tools gave insightful information to identify what was needed in the proof-of-concept application and resulted in a list of requirements. The information gained from Dewire also indicated what technologies to use and resulted in a research phase. Different design proposals were presented and one was chosen to be implemented. An agile approach was chosen as method for the implementation phase to emphasize flexibility. It was set to be iterative and in close communication with people at Dewire. The implementation resulted in a proof-of-concept application with a GUI that allows user to configure data sources, message queues and messages. The messages are uploaded in XML format and the GUI allows for modification through HTML forms which mir-rors the XML files. The user is also able to send these messages as JMS mes-sages. Responses to these JMS messages are also shown in the GUI and saved in a database. The results suggest that accomplishing the common task to select a connection tree and send a message takes 45% less time in the proof-of-concept application compared to Dewire’s tool. To accomplish the common task to alter a message and send it takes 79% less time in the proof-of-concept appli-cation compared to Dewire’s tool. The results also suggest that theory of com-puter-human interaction have been applied during the implementation to ac-complisha usable UI. It is assessed that data sources, message queues and mes-sage can be easy configured in a GUI. Further, it is assessed that the productivi-ty has been increased compared to the former tool used.