List of Some Useful Materials for Exploratory Testing

Exploratory testing isn’t just some trivial type of software verification. It is also a fundamental factor for continuous learning, development of advanced products, and a key to more intercommunication with a team.
Further in the article, we’ll review an exhaustive list of various tools which cover the maximum needs of classical software exploratory testing.
Preliminary Stage. Materials for General Information
- An article by Simon Tomes. The author compares exploratory testing with other important testing approaches and tells about his practical experience on how to do the first steps.
- Another post by Mark Winteringham and Dan Ashby uncovers significant values of exploratory testing providing an example from their expertise.
- Start Exploratory Testing Today – Risks and Questions video will help you understand the risks and other important questions based on simple and illustrative examples. After the review is complete, you can try to use these exercises to test any projects (for example, with app testing services).
Triggers for Various Test Ideas
- Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet. This cheat sheet was developed by James Linds and Dale Emery. The document is very easy to understand, but very versatile for situations where you, as a QA engineer, are “stuck in place” and do not understand what can and should be explored further;
- Welcome to the internet – a popular oracle for triggering test ideas that can be used for classic web communications;
- Rikard Edgren, Martin Janssen, and Henrik Emilsson have posted a pretty helpful post about 37 test ideas from which you can get a good knowledge of how to build the right exploratory testing strategy and everything that goes with it.
Question – Answer
Sometimes, you need to ask a question. Below, there are resources where you can get your answers more likely.
- Simon Tomes and Elizabeth Zagroba are pleased to answer any question about the basics of exploratory testing.
- Here you can ask your question to a constantly growing community of exploratory testers.
- Callum Akehurst-Ryan answers questions and regularly posts some useful materials.
Using Helpful Tools
Any exploratory testing can and should be supported with practical tools:
- LICEcap – allows you to perform an animated viewport capture, followed by sharing in GIF format;
- MindNode is a popular tool for easy work with mind maps;
- https://github.com/minimaxir/big-list-of-naughty-strings is an unlimited set of lines that increases the chances of finding bugs when entering lines into test fields.
Automation and more
Elizabeth Zagroba shares her team’s experience on how it was possible to automate every test when a new product was released. Here, you can find information not only about the features of automating research tests but also trace the logic of the ‘movement’ from beta tests to the general availability of software.
As for printed literature, the following books can be a good source of new knowledge:
- A book by Elizabeth Hendrickson. The book is overflowing with useful tips on exploratory testing and also contains a lot of methods and techniques on how to make such tests better and more efficient.
- Maaret Pyhäjärvi’s book is entirely devoted to the topic of exploratory testing as a special form of thinking and learning new skills in the field of software testing.
By harnessing the power of these materials, testing professionals can enhance their ability to uncover intricate defects, validate assumptions, and improve overall software quality. However, it is important to recognize that while these materials offer valuable guidance, the true essence of exploratory testing lies in the tester’s intuition, curiosity, and investigative skills. As the testing landscape evolves and software complexity increases, the synergy between structured testing methodologies and exploratory techniques becomes increasingly vital.