I’ve seen lots of clients asking which type of testing they should use. It’s never a clear cut and usually the answer is a combination of different testing methodologies. In this blog post I try to highlight some of the benefits of session-based testing and using Testlio platform for managing this. Exploratory testing Based on wikipedia, exploratory testing is: “an approach to software testing that is concisely described as simultaneous learning, test design and test execution”. It means that by going through your test execution you actually learn continuously something new about the application and based on that you should change your test approach. What distinguishes exploratory testing from ad-hoc testing is going beyond the obvious – you just don’t click around randomly, but every test you do changes your view for the next test you should run. Scripted testing Scripted testing can be either manual or automated and is defined as: “a set of instructions that will be performed on the system under test to test that the system functions as expected”. Scripted testing is good for verifying that the core of your app still works as expected after new changes have been introduced. Automated tests are repeatable and can give you a quick feedback on functionality that got broken, though they are not able to introduce new set of bugs. Session-based testing One weakness of exploratory testing is its lack of visibility and scalability, especially when testing is outsourced to an external company. It’s often hard for app developers to get confirmation which tests actually get run. This is where session-based testing comes to the picture. Session-based testing “combines accountability and exploratory testing to provide rapid defect discovery, creative on-the-fly test design, management control and metrics reporting”. It consists of uninterrupted testing periods called sessions, in which testers concentrate on testing certain areas of an app. After session end tester puts together a report stating areas she tested, how her testing was conducted, any bugs she found and issues that she raised during the testing (product concerns, open questions, test system problems, etc). This detailed report gives visibility to product owner and makes tester more accountable on her test design. Conclusion Given all this, we at Testlio believe that best testing results can be achieved by combining different testing methodologies and thus we have built our platform to be flexible for supporting and aggregating all this. It’s now very easy to plan your testing, no matter whether you like to use simple exploratory, session-based or scripted testing. And as a cherry on the top, we also can offer you the full testing service, where we take the responsibility of test planning and build you the world-class testing team that works together for best results. Your choice for the right test approach is never straightforward. It depends a lot at what stage you are in your app life-cycle and how your testing is organized. Usually the best approach is to combine different test methodologies. This is where using Testlio’s platform and testing service can help you a lot. We can find you an approach that gives you best risk mitigation by combining the strengths of our highly skilled community of testers and flexible testing platform. Further reading: Exploratory testing Session-based testing Test script What is Exploratory Testing? Meelik Gornoi @meelik @testlio #lovetesting