Exploratory Testing is…already something written about by lots of people. But for the benefit of those just learning about exploratory testing, a Product Manager or someone who wants to be part of an interview for a software role, lets recap — have a wee sip.

Let’s step back to Testing itself. Testing involves thinking, understanding and learning while a ‘test’ is simply an instance of understanding at a given moment in time. Testing is continuous and inherently human while tests simply allow us to externalise and encode our understanding at a specific moment in time.

Exploratory Testing involves far less documentation. We don’t document each and every test case. Instead we use our experience, our Oracle, part of our ‘toolbox’ if you will as experienced quality advocates and testers.

While automation testing speeds up repetitive cases, exploratory testing excels at identifying subtle bugs, user experience challenges, and unforeseen behaviours. Aligned with the Agile nature of continuous development cycles, this confluence improves testing coverage, accelerates defect identification, and fosters innovation.

W.A.T.E.R
I use a W.A.T.E.R acronym, to help people I collaborate with remember the fundamental principles that make exploratory testing a valuable and effective approach in software quality.

W — Wide Coverage
Exploratory testing aims to cover as many areas of the application as possible. Testers explore various features, functions, and user paths to ensure that the parts of the system their oracle knowledge tells them to cover, which might be missed in scripted/fallible testing.

A — Adaptive Approach
Exploratory testing is highly adaptive. Testers continuously learn and adapt their testing strategies based on their findings. This flexibility allows testers to pivot and focus on areas that seem more error-prone or that reveal unexpected behaviours.

T — Time-Efficient
Exploratory testing can be more time-efficient compared to traditional testing methods. Without the need for detailed test case documentation beforehand, testers can start testing immediately. This efficiency is particularly beneficial in agile environments where quick feedback is crucial.

E — Experience-Driven
The success of exploratory testing heavily relies on the tester’s experience and intuition, we sometimes call this their Oracle experience. Skilled testers use their knowledge of the application, the domain, and common software issues to guide their testing efforts. Their experience helps in identifying critical issues that automated tests might overlook.

R — Realistic Scenarios
Exploratory testing often involves simulating realistic user scenarios whilst also considering real life experiments that might be going on across your engineering domains. Testers interact with the application as real users would, uncovering usability issues and ensuring the application behaves as expected under real-world conditions. This approach helps in finding bugs that affect the end-user experience or will be detrimental to Product Health or Value.

I then follow it up in my head, seeing an image of a super hero, hands on hips, with a bubble saying:

With Advice (Oracle Knowledge), Tools, Exploration of Resources with Charters, Uniqueness Prevails.

Because all testers are heroes in my head…

I'm an awesome woman in tech and I believe in the value of curiosity and empathy in testing. I do all my own stunts, love food, travel, my friends, family, music and art.