Abstract
Formal methods and testing are two important approaches that assist in the development of high quality software. Model-based testing (MBT) is a systematic approach to testing where using formal models enables automatic generation of test cases and test oracle. Although the results of applying MBT in practice are promising, creating formal models is an obstacle for wide-spread use of MBT in industry. In this paper we address how the cooperation between testers and user experience designers can help with the overall challenge of applying MBT. We present a test automation approach based on Task Models and Microsoft Spec Explorer model-based testing tool to improve software testing. Task Model is a formal model to specify the high-level interaction between the user and the graphical user interface (GUI). We developed a tool, called UXSpec, to convert Task Models to the input models of Spec Explorer, allowing us to do functional testing with little modeling effort, due to usage of already existing models. We demonstrate this by applying our approach to a case study.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Veanes, M., Campbell, C., Grieskamp, W., Schulte, W., Tillmann, N., Nachmanson, L.: Model-based testing of object-oriented reactive systems with Spec explorer. In: Hierons, R.M., Bowen, J.P., Harman, M. (eds.) FORTEST. LNCS, vol. 4949, pp. 39–76. Springer, Heidelberg (2008). doi:10.1007/978-3-540-78917-8_2
The Eclipse Foundation: Acceleo. http://www.eclipse.org/acceleo/
The Eclipse Foundation: Eclipse Modeling Framework Project (EMF). http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/
The Eclipse Foundation: MoDisco Homepage. http://www.eclipse.org/MoDisco/
The Eclipse Foundation: QVTo. http://wiki.eclipse.org/QVTo
Microsoft: NModel. https://nmodel.codeplex.com/
Jacky, J: PyModel: model-based testing in Python. In: Proceedings of the 10th Python in Science Conference, pp. 43–48 (2011)
Steinberg, D., Budinsky, F., Paternostro, M., Merks, E.: EMF: Eclipse Modeling Frame-Work 2.0, 2nd edn. Addison-Wesley Professional, Reading (2009)
Model-based Testing with SpecExplorer. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/specexplorer
Manca, M., Patern, F., Santoro, C., Spano, L.D.: Considering task pre-conditions in model-based user interface design and generation. In: Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems, pp. 149–154. ACM (2014)
Patern, F., Santoro, C., Spano, L.D., Raggett, D.: MBUI - Task Models, W3C Working Group Note 08 April 2014
Windows Automation API: UI Automation. http://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/library/windows/desktop/ee684009(v=vs.85).aspx
Silva, J.L., Campos, J.C., Paiva, A.C.R.: Model-based user interface testing with Spec explorer and ConcurTaskTrees. Electron. Notes Theor. Comput. Sci. 208, 77–93 (2008). doi:10.1016/j.entcs.2008.03.108
Barbosa, A., Paiva, A.C.R., Campos, J.C.: Test case generation from mutated task models. In : Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems (EICS 2011), pp. 175–184. ACM (2011). doi:10.1145/1996461.1996516
Hjort, U.H., Illum, J., Larsen, K.G., Petersen, M.A., Skou, A.: Model-based GUI testing using Uppaal at Novo Nordisk. In: Cavalcanti, A., Dams, D.R. (eds.) FM 2009. LNCS, vol. 5850, pp. 814–818. Springer, Heidelberg (2009). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-05089-3_53
Paiva, A.C.R.: Automated Specification-based Testing of Graphical User Interfaces, Ph.D. thesis, Faculty of Engineering, Porto University, Porto, Portugal (1997)
Nguyen, B., Robbins, B., Banerjee, I., Memon, A.: GUITAR: an innovative tool for AU-tomated testing of GUI-driven software. Autom. Softw. Eng. 21, 65–105 (2013). doi:10.1007/s10515-013-0128-9
Alsmadi, I., Samarah, S., Saifan, A., AL Zamil, M.G.: Automatic model based methods to improve test effectiveness. Univ. J. Comput. Sci. Eng. Technol. 1(1), 41–49 (2010)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
van der Meer, A.P., Kherrazi, R., Noroozi, N., Wierda, A. (2015). The Synergy Between User Experience Design and Software Testing. In: Bianculli, D., Calinescu, R., Rumpe, B. (eds) Software Engineering and Formal Methods. SEFM 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9509. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49224-6_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49224-6_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-49223-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-49224-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)