When great chefs look to innovate and create world-class dining experiences, they often leverage test kitchens. Typically, small spaces that don’t serve paying customers, test kitchens provide a place for experimentation and risk without the pressure of a normal working environment. Chefs use these kitchens to separate the creative process from a production setting. These test kitchens enable chefs to invent food preparation techniques and work with new ingredients. They also enable teams to perfect their craft before the customers arrive. All of this is necessary to be disruptive in one of the most highly competitive marketplaces in business.
If any of that sounds familiar to us in the DevOps world, it should. We face similar challenges getting new and innovative technology to market. We go through extended build and test cycles to harden our releases and ensure that we have a functional, market-ready build. The cost of getting it wrong later is much higher. Therefore, the goal is to identify defects early with software test automation and ensure that release quality is high.
The key elements that make up that process have similar goals and objectives to those in the restaurant setting.
Experimentation and iteration
Both involve significant levels of experimentation and iterative improvements. In a test kitchen, chefs experiment with new recipes and techniques, then make refinements based on the results. Similarly, QA teams test their code and iterate to improve performance and usability.
Quality assurance with Test Automation
Both spaces ensure that the final product is high quality. A test kitchen ensures the food tastes good and is safe to eat, while software testing validates and verifies functionality, usability, integration, and performance.
Edge cases
In a test kitchen, chefs need to consider all sorts of variables (including variations in ovens and ingredient freshness). Similarly, in software testing, developers have to consider edge cases and how different people might use the product under different circumstances.
Prototyping
Both environments make use of prototypes. In a test kitchen, the chef might prototype and tweak a new recipe several times before it finally appears on the menu. In software testing, a piece of software might go through multiple versions before it is ready for production.
Repeatability
A test kitchen is not successful if chefs can’t repeat the recipe with the same results. The same applies to software testing. Tests need to be repeatable to ensure the reliability of the software.
User experience
Chefs in a test kitchen always have to keep the end user (the diner) in mind, making sure that the food not only tastes good but also looks appetizing and is consistent. QA testers must also keep the end user in mind, ensuring that the software works as expected and provides a good user experience.
User experience testing for restaurants and software, particularly mobile application testing, share many common elements. Both disciplines have a high failure rate, and good testing can help ensure a greater likelihood of success. So what options do QA teams have to test freely and experiment in relative safety? How can teams iterate with more flexibility and rapidly test with the same freedom that a test kitchen provides to get ahead of the release schedule?
These are some of the many questions Keysight must address when looking at how we can improve software testing and create an environment where teams have the space to be creative and deliver world-class applications. It’s one of the reasons we provide tools that enable rapid test modeling, setup, and configuration and support more test environments. The goal is to enable more flexibility and freedom for teams who are testing inline as a part of their continuous development life cycle.
One example is how we’ve expanded Keysight Eggplant Test to include support for testing on real mobile devices in the cloud. The mobile device landscape is an inherently complex and challenging environment. Many variables on the system under test like network and battery performance affect performance and user experience. With Eggplant Test 7.0, QA teams can test their applications on more than 700 iOS and Android device and operating system combinations. This on-demand test lab gives dev teams a safe space to be more creative and think differently about problem-solving. It also enables them to test more thoroughly and completely to ensure the final product meets requirements and expectations.
This is just one example of how we’re building a test kitchen for QA teams to perfect their recipes. We’ve also added continuous integration / continuous delivery tools, support for testing new clients like Citrix workspaces, and a lot more. You can learn more about Eggplant Test in our upcoming webinar, The Roadmap to Zero Manual Testing. In this webinar, we will review all the new capabilities in the Eggplant Test 7.0 release and hear from experts about how test automation is reshaping modern application development approaches.