Introduction and Background

Purpose and Scope

The 'purpose' of this wiki is to share information, ideas and experiences about test automation, using the Diagnostics, Issues and Patterns described here.
The 'scope' of this wiki is system-level test automation patterns, not test patterns, and not development-level automation patterns (these are covered by Gerard Meszaros - see References).

What is in the wiki?

The 'Diagnostics' are questions you can answer to help identify the most critical Issue you want to deal with to improve your test automation.

An 'Issue' is some kind of problem in test automation, or something that needs to be done.

A 'Pattern' is a way of solving an issue that has worked for people and may be useful for others. A pattern is not prescriptive or a set of steps, but rather ideas to consider to see if they would apply in your situation or context.

Issues and Patterns are categorised into Process, Management, Design and Execution.

Issues and Patterns have 'Mindmaps' to help show their structure and relationship to other patterns. (These mind maps are not links, just for information.)

History of this wiki

In 2012, the book Experiences of Test Automation was published, a collection of automation case studies, collected, edited and commented on by Dorothy Graham and Mark Fewster. Seretta Gamba contributed Chapter 21: Automation through the back door. When she read the other chapters, she thought: "there are patterns here!" As a developer, she was already familiar with development patterns. She initially wrote them up as a book in Word, and asked Dorothy to help; Word proved to be unworkable for the interconnected issues and patterns, so the idea of the wiki was born.

This wiki was initiated by Seretta Gamba and Dorothy Graham on 28th January 2013, and has been maintained by Seretta and Dorothy ever since. The original host, wikispaces.com, is closing down in 2018, and we are very grateful to have found a new host for this wiki so that it can continue!

Your help is welcomed!

The more people contribute to this wiki, the more benefit it will be to everyone. We invite your help to show how the patterns have worked for you, problems you have encountered, and tips and advice from your experience.

Each pattern has an "Experiences" section where people can contribute their own experience (an example is in the pattern AUTOMATION ROLES).

If you would like to contribute to the wiki, please go to Feedback to submit your experience or comment.

Thanks very much to those who have already contributed - details on the Acknowledgements page.

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