Visual AI Applitools

Functional and Visual Testing Through Visual AI Applitools and its Integration with BDD Cucumber Framework

How BDD can improve business-developer alignment

Developers, testers, product managers, business managers, and users often have different viewpoints on what makes great software. This can lead to bottlenecks and unnecessary rework, which adds cost and frustrates those in charge. Ultimately though, software must fulfill the expectations of the user/customer and meet business objectives.

That’s where behavior-driven development (BDD) comes into play. This development methodology was born of the need to put desired behaviors of a feature first, and BDD tools and processes help keep all the stakeholders on the same page using plain English.

A quick rundown of how BDD works

Unlike traditional development unit or functional test scripts, BDD scripts are written in the form of real-world use case scenarios using the Gherkin “Given-When-Then” syntax that is used by popular BDD tools like Cucumber.

Here’s an example:

Feature: Sign in
Given that I have an [SITENAME] username and password
I should be able to sign into [SITENAME]
If my username and password are correct
Scenario: Enable password reset
Given I have signed up for [SITENAME]
And I have never logged into [SITENAME]after 90 days
When I press enter my username and existing password to login
Then I should be notified and prompted to change my password

Anyone from engineers to product owners can write BDD scenarios, because they are in layman’s English. The desired behavior is documented in the feature file and tests are automated to validate business scenarios you want to create.

At a high level, BDD forces stakeholders to work together because the entire team is tracing their tests, code and acceptance criteria to the feature file. For instance, when a test fails, the developer should agree that it’s failing because it doesn’t match the behavior of the system that’s being developed. BDD focuses on speed and quality, the latter of which has been a weakness of devops. At its best, BDD eliminates finger-pointing when something goes wrong during development or postproduction.

BDD was born out of test-driven development (TDD), which is all about unit testing. BDD takes TDD to the next level by focusing on scenarios and user experience, in addition to verifying that the code is working properly and doesn’t break other code in the branch.

Business benefits of BDD

BDD is great for developers because scenarios focus on how the feature should behave for the user, which means less ambiguity in what to develop. Another key benefit is that it’s easier to turn these scenarios into automated tests using the Gherkin syntax. How the business benefits have been discussed less frequently but is equally if not more important.

1. Maximize resources and minimize waste

Business stakeholders worry about competitive moves that can upend revenue growth or turn away customers. Therefore, when it comes to working with the development team, business folks want to increase speed to market, while delivering a truly awesome user experience. BDD isn’t a silver bullet, but it does limit the rework of a feature because BDD tools (like Cucumber) enable a cross-functional team to easily and clearly define the user experience at the beginning of the devops cycle. This helps focus the project and prevents the introduction of features that aren’t relevant to the user base. BDD also speaks to the speed component in two ways: by preventing bottlenecks and by decreasing manual testing.

2. Improve communication to achieve shared goals

Devops set out to improve development processes to be more collaborative, streamlined and fast. Still, much is left to chance when it comes to communication and collaboration between different roles. BDD encourages more test automation and a process that is inclusive of non-developer employees. What’s cool here is that, while the “three amigos” process focuses on collaboration among a tester, developer, and product manager, BDD could include other roles too, like a business analyst or QA lead. Having more cooks in the kitchen with diverse perspectives can ensure alignment at the outset and ultimately produce higher quality software, especially with a high-stakes or complex project.

3. Deliver high-quality software that meets the desired business outcomes

Quality is a subjective term. What BDD brings is explicit agreement on this notion of quality, among people from sometimes opposing spectrums of the product life cycle. BDD supports increased automation, which increases testing speed and coverage, but never loses sight of the acceptance criteria or the initial product vision.

While it’s never easy to shift to an entirely new process, we at QASymphony have seen the adoption of BDD pay off for a number of companies. One I know was able to minimize defects and speed time to market after switching to BDD. This company’s QA team struggled with defining the correct test scenarios based on the business requirement, since QA, developers and product owners were never brought together in sprint planning sessions when user stories were written. The testers often didn’t even see them until development had begun.

Now, testers attend every sprint planning session, and they’re able to write test cases alongside product owners and developers. Not only does this ensure product owners can see developers’ and testers’ interpretations of requirements and correct any misunderstandings in real time – the whole team also spends their time much more efficiently, because they’ve all agreed upon what to develop in advance. And because they’re using a BDD framework, the scenarios they test can be easily translated into test automated test scripts, which saves significant time in the testing process.

Problem Description:

Software Developer try to make sure and apply lot of effort to ensure that their application work without any Issue. However, Developers often work in isolation they cannot anticipate the way how their software will be used by potential customers.

Today there are N Number of browsers, operating systems, devices, form factors, and screen resolutions, it is more difficult than ever to test whether your application is working exactly how it should be in each area.

Until recently, the only way to comprehensively test an application was to put it in the hands of testers. These testers would run scripted or ad-hoc scenarios to manually test applications in real-life conditions.

Solution to the Problem:

Applitools has developed a revolutionary solution for this problem. Applitools Eyes uses advanced cognitive vision technology, which makes it completely different from any other existing testing tool. Applitools provides a state-of-the-art AI-powered end-to-end visual testing and monitoring platform for Developers, Test Automation, Manual QA, DevOps, and Digital Transformation teams.

Visual AI technology transforms how organizations approach quality by ensuring web and mobile applications appear and operate exactly as designed across any device, browser, OS, or native application.

Applitools is fast, quick to integrate with any DevOps environment, easy to use by anyone on the team, and scalable to any size organization looking to increase speed and quality with every release - an outcome necessary to compete in today's challenging business environment.

Cucumber LinkedIn Login Validation Use Case

Below is the Sample Feature file written in Gherkin Language.

The Above Feature File defines the Scenario Outline which Validates the User Login by Passing Username and Password which are Dynamic and Provided from Examples.

Validation Test Steps

User Opens the Browser Pass the LinkedIn Login Url Link.
User Pass Valid or Invalid Username and Password.
User should land to the LinkedIn Home Page.

Integration of Applitools Step Definition Description

Create a free Applitools account and get the Applitools API KEY

Maven Dependency

<!-- Applitools SDK -->
<dependency>
<groupId>com.applitools</groupId>
<artifactId>eyes-selenium-java3</artifactId>
<version>RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

Import in Step Definition:

import com.applitools.eyes.*;
import com.applitools.eyes.selenium.ClassicRunner;
import com.applitools.eyes.selenium.Eyes;

Initialize

EyesRunner runner = new ClassicRunner();
Eyes eyes = new Eyes(runner);
eyes.setApiKey("APPLITOOLS_API_KEY");

Start the Test

eyes.open(driver, "Demo App", "Smoke Test", new RectangleSize(800, 600));
driver.get("https://www.linkedin.com/login ");
Add eyes.checkWindow to take a screenshot
eyes.checkWindow("Login Window");

Step Definition Snapshot:

Applitools Dashboard

Applitools Dashboard the Actual Test Result.

When you first run the test, our A.I. server simply stores those first set of screenshots as Baseline images
When you run the same test again (and every time there after), the A.I. server will compare the new set of screenshots.
Checkpoint images, with the corresponding Baseline images and highlights differences in pink color.