Atomic Talk Title: Mission impossible: Automatic Usability Testing

In the little time we have in a sprint, Software testers focus on working functionality, according to the requirements that are set. They automate the regression test, to make sure the (main) functionality does not break. But do we have time to test the ‘nice to haves’ ?
Usability is seen as nice to have but can actually be more important that working functionality: frustrated users will not return to your application. Usability is also said to be subjective, and therefore not possible to automate. But what if I tell you that it IS possible?

In this talk I would like to tell you about the Heurichecker, a tool which automatically tests web applications on Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics. I have won the RisingSTAR award at EuroSTAR 2022 with this idea.

Talk Takeaways

• Why it is important for testers to test Usability
• Which heuristics can be automated, and which cannot be automated?
• Why automatic usability testing can improve the quality of web applications?