This time in “People in Testing” I had the chance to interview Rudolf Groetz, who is the founder and organizer of the Mobile Quality Night. Rudolf is Head of QA at JUMIO Inc. with a mobile mindset. He has very good knowledge in the area of mobile testing and especially in mobile test automation. In this interview Rudolf is talking about his current mobile testing challenge, which kind of test automation solution he is using and what is the next big thing in the software development and testing world. Enjoy the interview.
Daniel: What is currently your biggest challenge at work?
Rudolf: For me the biggest challenge at the moment is the ever rising device fragmentation in the mobile world. This problem forces me to constantly adapt our mobile device lab, furthermore I need to check that our app is still working with the latest SDK’s and on new devices our customers are using. For our testing process we are using only physical devices and no emulators or simulators. We have a mobile device lab in our office, if there are devices that are not part of the mobile device lab, we are also using Mobile Device Clouds. Those devices are used for manual as well as automated mobile testing.
What kind of test automation tool are you using during your workday?
We decided to use Selenium for our test automation efforts. For the web test automation we are using Webdriver with a combination of Gebish and Spock and for the mobile test automation we are using Appium. Before we switched to Open Source technologies we were using closed source enterprise tools for the whole test automation. However, those closed source technologies had one big drawback, they are too slow, in terms of changes and new standards in the fast rising mobile market.
I really like the idea behind Open Source: When the developers are able to read the source code of the product they are able to adapt and to improve it. They can fix bugs and furthermore, they can contribute to the Open Source product to distribute the changes and to create a better product everybody can use. All those changes happen in a very fast pace that heavy weight enterprise tools can’t keep up. The Open Source community as raised the bar in the software development industry and the closed source tools need to find a way to close the gap.
What do you think is the next big thing in the software testing world?
IoT – testing the Internet of Things. This will be the next hot topic in the software testing industry. There will be lots of new challenges for software testers, knowledge about IoT, automation tools, devices and so on. Especially in the area of test automation tools will be lots of new challenges e.g. devices, sensors, apps and so on. What kind of test automation tools can help a software tester to succeed.
Again, the skills of a software tester will make the difference also in the IoT section. Test team must have a much broader knowledge compared to teams who are testing web or desktop applications. Those teams must have a deep understanding of the underlying hardware and the network interfaces. I think the best tester for IoT software is a mixture of mobile, embedded, Web and API tester.
I am curious when the first ISTQB/ iSQI certification will be available for IoT testers.
What was the initial idea to create and organize the Mobile Quality Night?
In January 2014, Christoph Börner and I decided to found the ASQF group for mobile devices and apps (better known as Vienna Mobile Quality Crew). Our goal was to establish a local user group that focuses completely on the quality of mobile technologies. At this time there was no other local user group that was focused on this topic and we saw that this topic is of interest for other software testers.
After the first successful meetups, we decided to create new format for the mobile crew. But we did not want to create just another testing conference with the typical 45 minutes talks and coffee breaks. When I was a speaker at the German Testing Night, I knew directly this is will be our new format as well. So we created the Mobile Quality Night.
Part of this event are two 30 minutes keytalks, six 5 minutes lightning-talks and one Fish-Bowl discussion. During this time there will be no pause or room change. The audience should completely focus on the talks. After the discussion there will be a buffet for everyone to start the networking sessions with other attendees and to discuss on further topics. The mobile quality night is starting early in the evening and will end at midnight. During this time only people who are really interested will join the event.
The feedback we got from the attendees is just great. Everyone loves this format and the information exchange between the participants. For the 2015 edition we created a new session inspired by BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), this session is called BYOT (Bring Your Own Testautomation). In the BYOT session companies have the chance to present their mobile test automation solution and talk about the why and how. For the BYOT keynote we were able to get Dan Cuellar the founder of Appium as speaker.
What is your current smartphone, tablet and why?
My day to day mobile device is the Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2, it fits perfectly in my pocket. I use this device for placing calls, e-mails, chat, Twitter and so on. I choose this device because it has three physical buttons (Home, Back and Menu) to interact with the device. The soft buttons of my previous device the Samsung Galaxy S III Mini was just a nightmare for me, when switching between apps more often.
When I am having my workout session I am using my old device the Samsung Galaxy III Mini. I am using this device mainly for music, audiobooks or videos that are stored locally on the device. During this time I don’t want to be interrupted and this is why there is no SIM card installed. In this use case the missing physical buttons are no problem.
Furthermore, I am using an ASUS tablet with Windows 8 and external keyboard. This device is mainly used for working when I am on the move.
About – Rudolf Groetz
Rudolf Groetz (49 years old) is a full advanced ISQTB certified tester and since 2012 the Head of QA at JUMIO Inc. In his role as Head of QA, he is trying to find the right balance between agile mobile testing and economically working to create a successful environment.
Besides his role as Head of QA, Rudolf is organizing the ASQF group Mobile Apps & Devices Austria, better known as Vienna Mobile Quality Crew.
Follow Rudolf on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RudolfGroetz
Meetup Group: http://www.meetup.com/Vienna-Mobile-Quality-Crew-Meetup/
The opinion/statements expressed in this interview is the opinion of its author (Rudolf Groetz) and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of JUMIO Inc.