What are different aspects of exploratory testing?

First let us discuss a little about what is exploratory testing actually?
It is a term rarely heard of! Exploratory testing is a usual approach to software testing and can be defined as a test designing, test execution and simultaneously a learning process. It was named by Cem Kaner in 1983.

He stated:

"exploratory testing as a kind of software testing that is emphasized and focused up on the responsibility and the personal freedom of the software tester to optimize the quality and effectiveness of his /her work continually by taking in to consideration mutually supportive activities like test designing, test related learning, test result interpretation and test execution".

- These activities run in parallel to each other.

- Exploratory testing basically heeds to exploiting the creativity of the tester or the programmer.

- During the testing of the software, the tester comes across various new things to learn together with experiencing them.

- The tester or the developer with his /her creativity can generate new and better test cases to run.

- Exploratory can be thought of as a black box testing methodology or technique instead of thinking of it as an approach to testing that can be used for any type of testing methodology and also at any phase of development of the software system or application.

According to some misconceptions, the testing technique or the object is considered to be the key here but, it is not so.

- In actual, the key is the cognitive engagement of the software tester and his /her responsibility of managing time.

- The effectiveness of the exploratory testing depends basically on how it is performed.

- Exploratory testing should always be performed by skilled testers or developers.

- Exploratory testing can also be though of as an intellectual activity.

- Exploratory testing is all about discovering how the software system or application actually works and how it handles both the easy and difficult cases.

- The effectiveness or the quality of the testing is largely dependent on the skills for developing test cases by the tester.

- It also depends on his/ her ability to find defects in the software code.

We can say that the quality of the testing is directly proportional to the knowledge of the tester about the software product and different test methods.

- The more he/ she know about the software system under test and testing methodologies, the better will be the exploratory testing.

- While carrying out the exploratory testing, the expectations should be kept open.

- Only some results can be expected or predicted but not all.

- The tester is responsible for configuring, operating, observing and evaluating the product itself and its behavior, investigating the result and reporting information.

- If we see practically the actual testing is a combination of both scripted testing and exploratory testing but, depending on the context of the testing the tendency is towards either one.

Exploratory testing is more about thinking how the testing should be done more than a testing technique. The documentation part of the exploratory testing includes:

- Documentation of all the test cases used.
- Documentation of the bugs.

Exploratory testers use tools like:

- Screen capture
- Video tools

These tools are used to generate situations of interest or as a record of the exploratory session. Bugs are discovered quickly and the approach tends to be more intellectual. Deductive reasoning based on the results of the previous tests can also be used in the exploratory testing. This leads to increased bug detection when used properly. The main disadvantage is that the tests can’t be reviewed before hand.

What are different aspects of exploratory testing?

Exploratory testing is a usual approach to software testing and can be defined as a test designing, test execution and simultaneously learning process.

It was named by Cem Kaner in 1983. "He stated exploratory testing as a kind of software testing that is emphasized and focused up on the responsibility and the personal freedom of the software tester to optimize the quality and effectiveness of his /her work continually by taking in to consideration mutually supportive activities like test designing, test related learning, test result interpretation and test execution".

These activities run in parallel to each other.

- Exploratory testing basically heeds to exploiting the creativity of the tester or the programmer.
- During the testing of the software, the tester comes across various new things to learn together with experiencing them.
- The tester or the developer with his /her creativity can generate new and better test cases to run.
- Exploratory can be thought of as a black box testing methodology or technique instead of thinking of it as an approach to testing that can be used for any type of testing methodology and also at any phase of development of the software system or application.

According to some misconceptions, the testing technique or the object is considered to be the key here but, it is not so.
- In actual, the key is the cognitive engagement of the software tester and his /her responsibility of managing time.
- The effectiveness of the exploratory testing depends basically on how it is performed.
- Exploratory testing should always be performed by skilled testers or developers.
- Exploratory testing can also be thought of as an intellectual activity.
- Exploratory testing is all about discovering how the software system or application actually works and how it handles both the easy and difficult cases.

The effectiveness or the quality of the testing is largely dependent on the skills for developing test cases by the tester.
- It also depends on his/ her ability to find defects in the software code.
- We can say that the quality of the testing is directly proportional to the knowledge of the tester about the software product and different test methods.
- The more he/ she know about the software system under test and testing methodologies, the better will be the exploratory testing.
- While carrying out the exploratory testing, the expectations should be kept open.
- Only some results can be expected or predicted but not all.
- The tester is responsible for configuring, operating, observing and evaluating the product itself and its behavior, investigating the result and reporting information. - If we see practically the actual testing is a combination of both scripted testing and exploratory testing but, depending on the context of the testing the tendency is towards either one.
- Exploratory testing is more about thinking how the testing should be done more than a testing technique.

The documentation part of the exploratory testing includes:

- Documentation of all the test cases used.
- Documentation of the bugs.

Exploratory testers use tools like:
- Screen capture
- Video tools

These tools are used to generate situations of interest or as a record of the exploratory session. For exploratory testing less before hand testing is needed. Bugs are discovered quickly and the approach tends to be more intellectual. Deductive reasoning based on the results of the previous tests can also be used in the exploratory testing. This leads to increased bug detection when used properly. The main disadvantage is that the tests can’t be reviewed before hand.

Who is a good exploratory tester and maintain a balance between scripted and exploratory testing.

Exploratory testing approach relies a lot on the tester alone. The tester actively controls the design of tests as they are performed and uses the information gained to design new and better ideas.
A good exploratory tester should
- have the ability to explain his work.
- he should have the ability to design good tests, execute them and find important problems.
- he should document his ideas and use them in later cycles.
- he should be a careful observer.
- he should be a critical thinker.
- he should have diverse ideas so as to make new test cases and improve existing ones.
- he should remain alert for new opportunities.

Exploratory Testing is advantageous when :
- rapid testing is necessary.
- test case development time is not available.
- need to cover high risk areas with more inputs.
- need to test software with little knowledge about the specifications.
- develop new test cases or improve the existing.

The drawbacks in exploratory testing includes that it is difficult to quantize and a skilled tester is required.
Exploratory testing relies on the tester and the approach he proceeds with. Pure scripted testing does not undergo much change with time and hence the power fades away. In test scenarios, where repeatability of tests is required, automated scripts have an edge over exploratory approach. Hence, it is important to achieve a balance between the two approaches and combine the two to get the best of both.

Stages and Goals of Data Mining

Data Mining is an analytic process designed to explore data (usually large amounts of data - typically business or market related) in search of consistent patterns and/or systematic relationships between variables, and then to validate the findings by applying the detected patterns to new subsets of data. The process of data mining consists of three stages:
1. Initial exploration :
This stage usually starts with data preparation which may involve cleaning data, data transformations, selecting subsets of records and - in case of data sets with large numbers of variables ("fields") - performing some preliminary feature selection operations to bring the number of variables to a manageable range. Then, depending on the nature of the analytic problem, this first stage of the process of data mining may involve anywhere between a simple choice of straightforward predictors for a regression model, to elaborate exploratory analyzes using a wide variety of graphical and statistical methods.
2. Model building and validation :
This stage involves considering various models and choosing the best one based on their predictive performance. There are a variety of techniques developed to achieve that goal - many of which are based on so-called "competitive evaluation of models," that is, applying different models to the same data set and then comparing their performance to choose the best. These techniques - which are often considered the core of predictive data mining - include: Bagging (Voting, Averaging), Boosting, Stacking (Stacked Generalizations), and Meta-Learning.
3. Deployment :
The final stage involves using the model selected as best in the previous stage and applying it to new data in order to generate predictions or estimates of the expected outcome.

GOALS OF DATA MINING :
- Prediction : Data mining can show how certain attributes within the data will behave in the future. In such applications, business logic is used coupled with data mining.
- Identification : Data patterns can be used to identify the existence of an item, an event, or an activity. For example, intruders trying to break a system may be identified by the programs executed, files accessed, and CPU time per session.
- Classification : Data mining can partition the data so that different classes or categories can be identified based on combination of parameters.
- Optimization : One eventual goal of data mining may be to optimize the use of limited resources such as time, space, money, or materials and to maximize output variables such as sales or profits under a given set of constraints.