Welcome to the 199th issue!

This week, I enjoyed a discussion started by this question:

What is the overall goal of test automation?

There's so much focus on test automation that sometimes we may not even ask ourselves the basic question about why we do it.

So enjoy, and happy testing! 🙂

PS. This is the last "normal" issue of the newsletter this year. Stay tuned for a special one coming up next week!

Dawid Dylowicz  

Mailsac Guide — How To Run Selenium Tests for Email in GitHub Actions

Browser automation isn't limited to just your desktop. Spark your automated browser testing in the cloud with Mailsac's Selenium GitHub Actions guide. We'll walk you through the power of headless browser automation, step by step. Check it out!

mailsac.com  

API exploratory testing: an opportunity to improve your API testing

Anne-Laure Gaillard shares how they prepared and ran exploratory testing for API and what they learned from that.

medium.com  

Quality Coaching: A Road Less Traveled

What does it mean to be a quality coach? Mirza Šišić describes the role and responsibilities and advises what you can do to become one.

Also, Venkat Ramakrishnan wrote about the naming of Testing Roles.

ministryoftesting.com  

Reframing Testing Arguments

In this thought-provoking article, Jeff Nyman shares his view on the difference between testing and checking, and explains the meaning of quality.

testerstories.com  

Software Testing Best Practices: Comprehensive Guide

If you're curious about what teams should do regarding software testing, Dominik Szahidewicz has several good tips.

bugbug.io  

Testing Projects: Expectation vs Reality

Anastasia Mordvintseva explains how testing practices may differ from project to project and how you can prepare for different scenarios.

You might also want to explore Isaac Lee's view on Why Testing Accelerates Burnout.

medium.com  

Accessibility Testing: Striking the Right Balance Between Automation and Manual Efforts

Wondering what types of accessibility tests you should and shouldn't automate? Irfan Mujagić put together a comprehensive guide.

And if you're curious about how to do it on mobile, Sahil Sharma shows how to Set Up Automated Accessibility Audits in Your iOS App CI/CD Pipeline.

thegreenreport.blog  

How to handle: 5 Issues that Every QA Automation Engineer faces

Having learned from his test automation experience, Bharat Varshney shares the common problems testers may encounter and suggests solutions for them.

medium.com  

Setting Up the First Android UI Test

Getting started with testing Android apps? Ryan Wong has got you covered with this helpful, step-by-step guide.

Furthermore, Phil Blenkinsop explains how you can do E2E Testing Android Apps With ADB.

medium.com  

Testing ChatGPT and Data Generation

Some people advocate using ChatGPT for test data generation, but Michael Bolton checks whether it's really that reliable.

developsense.com  

TestingPod Blog: QA & Testing Insights Delivered to Your Inbox

Keep pace with QA innovations on TestingPod! Uncover the secrets of code reviews for automation QA and learn how to leverage Selenium to simulate slow internet conditions. Elevate your skills — read and subscribe here for in-depth QA expertise.

magicpod.com  

A Feature Map Framework with Playwright for Improved UI Testing Tracking

Butch Mayhew shows a handy way of assessing feature coverage with Playwright — a solution that can be applied to other test frameworks, too.

In relation to that, Maaret Pyhäjärvi tells us about Model-Based Testing in Python.

playwrightsolutions.com  

API Testing Showdown: Postman vs Pytest (Part 2)

In the second part of the series, Nikita Belkovskiy compares the feasibility of API test setup and test teardown between Postman and Pytest.

You may also want to discover other Free/Open Source Alternatives to Postman.

medium.com  

Automating System Apps with Appium — iOS and Android

If you're looking for a detailed overview of setting up and using Appium for automating mobile apps, have a look at this great guide by Lana Begunova.

You may also want to learn about The Pros and Cons of XPath — Mobile Locator Strategy.

medium.com  

Making E2E Tests Harder, Better, Faster, and Stronger with Playwright

Ben Hammond describes how Playwright features helped them improve their test automation efficiency.

However, you might also want to see How Playwright compares to TestCafe, as Cerosh Jacob explains.

benhammond.tech  

Visual Component Testing with Storybook

In this overview, Lucy Diaz outlines the pros and cons of using Storybook for visual regression testing of web UI components.

medium.com  

Why Aren't Codeless Automation Tools More Common in QA?

There are plenty of no-code or low-code tools for test automation on the market, and here's what the testing community thinks about them.

reddit.com  

Lessons from Software Engineering at Google: Part 7 — Automated Testing

Tomasz Gil summarises the key takeaways on test automation from the classic book Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time.

tomaszgil.me  

Mastering Performance Testing with Marie Cruz

In this great 46-minute recording, Marie Cruz and Nikolay Advolodkin discuss all things performance testing.

youtube.com  

What Is Exploratory Testing, and Which Tools Can I use for it?

If you're looking for an in-depth, practical overview of exploratory testing, Daniel Knott recorded a helpful 30-minute video.

youtube.com  

Bug emotions... 😂

Thanks for reading!

If you like this newsletter and it helps you become a better tester, you can say thanks and buy me a coffee.

Dawid Dylowicz