Exploratory Testing : SUMO Ask a Question

This post is going to cover exploratory testing in the Ask a Question flow inside SUMO, Mozilla’s Support website.

You can jump ahead and run this test directly in Moztrap:
https://moztrap.mozilla.org/runtests/environment/2511/

The purpose of exploratory testing is to find bugs. It’s a process of *exploring* the app as a user might. The term ‘exploratory testing’ has come to mean different things to different people. In this case it is a test approach where the tester seeks to find out how the software works, and asks questions on behalf of the users. The goal is to find bugs where the software does not work as expected, or does not work as a user might expect it to.

Let’s follow the test case to see what we can find!

Testing

1) Go to the URL for the SUMO Staging environment:https://support.allizom.org/en-US/questions/new

Next we can dive into some exploratory testing. There are no strict rules to follow. Use the site as you think a user might. Try to find something. Click around to different pages or links. Keep your eyes open- is everything displayed correctly? Are you able to find what you are looking for?

2) Click different links within the Ask a Question flow:

• Click different links for Products
• Run searches on different topics – do related articles display?
• How is the display? Do you see the progress bar moving? Does it correctly display your selections such as product and category?
• Can you edit your question?
• Can you post multiple questions?
• How does the flow change if you are signed in, or signed out when you start it?
• Can you leave the flow at any time to return to the rest of the site? You’ll notice you can move away from the flow, but your place is not saved. Make sure you can start another question at any time!
• Try these tests on a variety of Browsers and Operating Systems. Does it all work as expected?

What next? The list above is not an exhaustive list of tests- it’s just a sample to give you some ideas of what to try. Can you see how this type of exploratory testing might be done on any website?

If you haven’t already, complete the SUMO AAQ exploratory test here:

https://moztrap.mozilla.org/runtests/environment/2511/

If you find a bug, you can file it on Bugzilla:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=support.mozilla.org

For information on filing a bug, please see this previous article on Exploratory testing:

https://quality.mozilla.org/2012/11/exploratory-testing-on-moztrap-job-board-posting-1/

If you’d like to chat about this test, or about SUMO – hop in our IRC channel by clicking this link:

Join the #SUMO IRC Channel

Thanks for testing SUMO!

Update: You can also check out the task one One and Done