EMBEDDED TEST MANAGEMENT FOR MOBILE APPLICATIONS

• US 20150161031A1
• Filed: 12/04/2014
• Published: 06/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Testfire, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Testfire, Inc.
• Inventors: Chea, Robert, Vertenten, Peter
• Granted Patent: US 9,268,671 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3664 Environments for testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3672 Test management

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating collecting information pertaining to operation of a software application. An example method includes employing a first user interface display screen of the software application to present a layer indicating one or more steps to be implemented via the software application as part of a test case; and selectively recording context information associated with implementation of the one or more steps. In a more specific embodiment, selectively recording includes automatically recording the context information, which includes information characterizing one or more user interactions with the software application and information characterizing a computing environment in which the software application runs.

Claims

1. A method adapted to facilitate collecting information pertaining to operation of a software application in a computing environment, the computing environment including one or more computing devices in communication with one or more servers, the one or more computing devices running one or more instances of the software application, wherein a particular computing device performs actions comprising:

executing at least a portion of the software application;

presenting one or more steps of a test case to be implemented at least in part by functionality invoked by the software application;

determining that a user has selected to perform testing on the software application using the steps of the test case; and

selectively recording context information associated with testing the software application in the course of performing the steps of the test case.

2. The method of claim 1, further including:

displaying, via a layer, one or more indications of one or more categories of steps to be implemented via the software application;

providing a first user option to select a category from among the one or more categories of steps, resulting in a selected category in response thereto;

employing the software application to display the one or more indications of the one or more of the steps; and

automatically recording the context information, wherein the context information includes information characterizing one or more user interactions with the software application, the one or more user interactions occurring during implementation of the one or more steps.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the software application includes a mobile application.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the one or more categories represent one or more test cases, wherein each test case is associated one or more steps indicated via the one or more indications.

5. The method of claim 4, further including illustrating, via the layer, a list of indications of test cases corresponding to the one or more categories;

and

providing the first user option to select a test case from the list of one or more test cases.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein a layer is used to display the one or more steps of the test case, wherein the layer is displayed via a first user interface display screen that is partially transparent, whereby one or more features of a second user interface display screen behind the layer are viewable or partially viewable through the layer.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein selectively recording includes obtaining context information associated with a computing environment of the software application.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the context information includes information indicating an operating system of a computing device and a type of the computing device on which the software application is running.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the context information includes timing information specifying a length of time required to complete a sequence comprising the one or more steps.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein selectively recording includes providing a user option to initiate a screen capture that captures an image of a user interface display screen of the application during implementation of the one or more steps, and further including providing a second user option to draw on the image representing the screen capture.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein recording further includes recording a video that includes one or more images indicating one or more user interactions with the software application during implementation of the one or more steps.

12. The method of claim 2, further including using a plugin in the software application to facilitate generation of a layer, wherein the software application includes an application to be tested in accordance with one or more test cases, and wherein the plugin is adapted to facilitate implementing one or more test management functions.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the one or more test management functions include providing a user option to select a test case to trigger display of an indication of a sequence one or more steps associated with the indication, and to trigger automatic recording of the information characterizing one or more user interactions with the software application.

14. The method of claim 12, further including implementing the plugin as a browser plugin, and wherein the software application includes a browser.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the software application represents a web application viewable via the browser.

16. The method of claim 2, further including:

transferring recorded context information to a server; and

providing a user option to trigger automatic distribution of one or more test cases to one or more computing devices of one or more users of the software application in accordance with a test-case distribution algorithm.

17. The method of claim 16, further including employing server-side software to automatically collect and sort context information collected from the one or more computing devices and pertaining to execution of one or more steps of the one or more test cases, wherein the one or more computing devices include one or more mobile devices running the software application or instance thereof.

18. The method of claim 3, further including employing a user interface display screen of the software application to facilitate capturing data, wherein the data includes one or more user-provided descriptions of a result of implementation of the one or more steps.

19. A computing device adapted to facilitate collecting information pertaining to operation of a software application in a computing environment, the computing environment including one or more computing devices in communication with one or more servers, the one or more computing devices running one or more instances of the software application, the computing device comprising:

a tangible storage device including instructions executable by the computing device for;

executing at least a portion of the software application;

presenting one or more steps of a test case to be implemented at least in part by functionality invoked by the software application;

determining that a user has selected to perform testing on the software application using the steps of the test case; and

selectively recording context information associated with testing the software application in the course of performing the steps of the test case.

20. A tangible storage medium including instructions executable by one or more computing devices of a computing environment, the instructions adapted to facilitate collecting information pertaining to operation of a software application in a computing environment, the computing environment including one or more computing devices in communication with one or more servers, the one or more computing devices running one or more instances of the software application, the tangible storage medium including instructions for:

executing at least a portion of the software application;

presenting one or more steps of a test case to be implemented at least in part by functionality invoked by the software application;

determining that a user has selected to perform testing on the software application using the steps of the test case; and

selectively recording context information associated with testing the software application in the course of performing the steps of the test case.

21. A method adapted to facilitate collecting information pertaining to operation of a software application in a computing environment, the computing environment including one or more computing devices in communication with one or more servers, the one or more computing devices running one or more instances of the software application, wherein a particular computing device performs actions comprising:

Accepting an address of a web page;

Retrieving information related to the web page at the address;

Generating one or more page displays in response to the retrieved information;

presenting one or more steps of a test case;

determining that a user has selected to perform testing associated with the web page by using the steps of the test case; and

selectively recording context information associated with the testing in the course of performing the steps of the test case.