Making Friends With QA - Mobile Central Europe, Warsaw, Poland, June 2018

My talk trying to convince developers to make friends with Quality Assurance.

Abstract:
Quality Assurance can be a controversial subject for mobile developers: Some developers (and companies) feel that it’s unnecessary with the advent of automated testing, some feel like QA people can be endlessly nitpicky and unnecessarily delay releases, and some people use it as an excuse to not test the things they’ve added. However, QA can (and I argue, should) be your best friend in getting a usable app with minimal bugs out the door. Learn about the different types of QA, bringing in your first QA person, setting up a QA pipeline, and how to combine automated tests with humans poking at your app to have extra confidence in your releases.

Transcript

1. Making Friends with QA Mobile Central Europe | Warsaw, Poland | June 2018 bakkenbaeck.com | justhum.com | @DesignatedNerd
2. What is quality?
7. Does it work for your users?
8. What is QA?
9. What is QA? (*in the context of mobile software development)
10. Project managers
11. "The people who make sure we never ship bugs"
12. "The people who prevent us from hitting deadlines"
13. Developers
14. "The people who break my app"
15. Nitpickers
16. The last barrier between you and something being messed up for your users
18. "The people who save my ass"
21. QA Engineers
22. What does a QA Engineer do?
23. Tries to use your app
24. Tells you how they broke it so you can fix it
25. Project Manager Bug Ticket → I can't log in
26. New QA Engineer Bug Ticket → I went to the login screen → I entered valid credentials → I tapped on the sign in button → It looked like it was logging in, but nothing happened
27. Experienced QA Engineer Bug Ticket → On a build pointed at the staging server → I went to the login screen → I entered valid credentials [me@hi.com/p4$$w0rd] → I tapped on the sign in button → The loading indicator appeared, then disappeared → I was not logged in and no error was displayed → Devices tested: iPhone X (11.4.1), iPhone 6 (10.3.3)
28. What is this app supposed to do?
29. Test Plans
30. Look at the whole app
31. Keep looking at the whole app
32. How important is shipping new functionality vs not breaking existing functionality
33. Types of QA Testing
34. Manual Testing
36. Software Testing
37. "We don't need QA. Our developers write automated tests!"
39. Tests are a good start
40. What kind of automated tests do you have?
41. Unit Tests
42. Unit Tests Limit: Only tests that pieces work in isolation
43. Integration Tests
44. Integration Tests Limit: Only tests that specific pieces work together
45. UI Tests
46. UI Tests Limit: Only tests that the UI responds the way the developer wants it to
48. Humans and robots find different issues
49. Humans are weird
50. Humans tap on all sorts of things you don't expect them to
51. Humans enter and exit apps Constantly
52. Humans try to do things without an internet connection
53. Humans try to do things without an internet connection !
54. Manual Tests
55. Dedicated QA testers
57. !
59. Reduce fear of code
60. Increase empathy
61. Teach basic git and running with an IDE
62. Encouraging basic fixes
63. Moving to building with you
64. Moving to testing with software
65. End To End Tests
66. Where to focus manual testing
67. Smoke Tests
69. Setting up a testing ! Pipeline
70. When should QA get a new build to test?
71. ! Scripts
72. ! Fastlane
73. Some arguments I've heard against dedicated QA
74. Some arguments I've heard against dedicated QA (and my responses)
75. Argument: “Quality should be everyone’s responsibility!”
76. Response: “Quality has become nobody’s responsibility.”
77. Argument: “Adding QA makes us go slower!”
78. Response: “Adding QA makes us go faster in the long term.”
79. Argument: “Adding QA makes change harder!”
80. Response: “Adding QA makes change manageable.”
81. Argument: “This project is too small to need QA!”
82. Response: "Some projects are. For a while."
83. How many kinds of tests and QA do I need to do?
92. Obligatory Summary Slide
93. Obligatory Summary Slide → QA helps catch problems before they reach users
94. Obligatory Summary Slide → QA helps catch problems before they reach users → QA forces clarification of existing process
95. Obligatory Summary Slide → QA helps catch problems before they reach users → QA forces clarification of existing process → Unit/UI tests are not a replacement for QA
96. Obligatory Summary Slide → QA helps catch problems before they reach users → QA forces clarification of existing process → Unit/UI tests are not a replacement for QA → Start with manual QA and work your way up to end-to-end and smoke tests
97. Obligatory Summary Slide → QA helps catch problems before they reach users → QA forces clarification of existing process → Unit/UI tests are not a replacement for QA → Start with manual QA and work your way up to end-to-end and smoke tests → Empathy between QA and dev is critical to success
98. Links! → TestRail for creating test suites http://www.gurock.com/testrail/ → The Director (aka QA Hates You) https://twitter.com/QAHatesYou
99. Photo Credits → Angry mob by Robert Course-Baker: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ 29233640@N07/3645211083 → Robot by the Oregon National Guard: https://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonmildep/ 8576624536/ → Craig and the New Features by Vjeran Pavic https://live.theverge.com/apple-wwdc-live-blog- keynote-2018
100. Photo Credits → iPhone 7+ Teardown by iFixIt https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/ iPhone+7+Plus+Teardown/67384 → Braden Holtby's Killer Save by John Locher https://www.instagram.com/p/BjbsdKBH26s/