A small tool to perform exploratory tests
Exploratory testing methodology keeps growing nowadays.
Those tests allow the free expression of a tester without following a test plan.
To run those tests, there is no need for a specific or complex software.
Here is the presentation of a very simple and efficient Chrome plugin “Exploratory Testing Chrome Extension”
Installation
The plugin is available in the Chrome Store and easy to find with a “Exploratory Testing” search
Then simply click on the extension and on “Add to Chrome”
After the installation the icon 
should be displayed at the top right of the browser
Use
After clicking on the button a menu appears with various options
- Bug
- Note
- Question
- Idea
During your exploratory tests session, just click on one of the menu options to open a field called ‘textarea’ then either click on ‘validate’ or “Maj+Enter” to attach a screenshot either on “Enter” if you just want to record some text.
At the end of the test it is possible to generate an HTML report via the button ‘Report’ containing the details of the test as well as the screenshots or csv export.
Plug-in review
Pros
- Free
- Simply
- Reporting
- Adding screenshots quickly
Cons
- No way to annotate screenshots
- If we begin to add values and change tab (or open another program) the plugin does not keep the data
- No time management
- No rich text support
- Only available with Chrome
In conclusion
Since the tool is easy to use, the user will quickly manage exploratory testing. However because of its limitation to browsers, it doesn’t allow exploratoring testing outside of WEB applications.
Update : 13/08/2016 : An issue blocked the generation of HTML report with special characters. This was resolved. I increase my mark
Marks 8/10
5 thoughts on “A small tool to perform exploratory tests”
Hello, I just give it a try, thank you for this blog post.
I love the simplicity of adding a note/bug with an attached screenshot. I also like how quickly you can generate a report; the tool is quite limited but seems fair enough for my own use.
I found another bug: when taking a screenshot with the development tools opened (Web console, for example), then the content is not retrieved and remains empty. See https://github.com/morvader/ExploratoryTestingChromeExtension/issues/2
Hi there!
I’m Francisco, creator or the tool. First of all, thank you so much for the review, it feels great to contribute to testing community out there.
It would try to improve some things you pointed in your post.
But, I’m a bit worried about the “8 remarks bug” you mentioned because I can’t reproduce it. Could you please give me more info about it?.
Thanks!
Hi Francisco.
Thank you for your comment.
I reproduce the bug , I create issue on your github repository
Cédric
I think I’ve just solved the export report issue.
It’s now published on web store
Thank you so much for helping!
That’s a cool little tool. Thanks for sharing.
It’s quite remarkable that there are almost no simple to use tools that support ET (well, until this one ;)).
Thanks.