Tech Talks with Daniel Knott

Over the years, the whole concept of Quality Assurance has gained a lot of recognition. Irrespective of the business or industry, anyone who needs software, application, or website to run their business operations has been crucially indulged in magnifying the quality assurance and software testing practices.  

Even though the earliest days of the internet and the above-defined technologies were only restricted to computers, everything changed with the introduction of the mobile. From eCommerce to handling comprehensive tasks such as CRM, ERP, etc. all become accessible through mobile-based solutions.  

Nevertheless, the only thing that limited the potential of these technologies was poor checks on end-to-end mobile testing. Since BugRaptors is on its way to translating the concept of quality revolution has accommodated numerous mobile app testing projects, we always aim to intensify the need for mobile testing by collaborating with the QA community from across the globe.  

This time, our in-house expert, Rajeev Verma interacted with Daniel Knott.  

Daniel is presently working as the Head of Software Testing at MaibornWolff GmbH in Hamburg, Deutschland.  Besides, he is a Book Author, a Freelance Blogger, and a speaker. Daniel has a huge love for quality, especially in web and native mobile apps.  

He is on a mission to shape the future of testing with a massive experience of more than 13 years in the industry. Over the years, he has worked on testing several native mobile apps as well as products. Adding to that, Daniel has even authored two books namely “Hands-on Mobile App Testing” and “Smartwatch App Testing.” He is a frequent blogger and conference speaker.  

During the interview, Rajeev Verma asked Daniel about his initial journey, his progress over the years, the new learnings, upcoming books, and more importantly the criteria for end-to-end testing of mobile apps.  

With all that introduction and briefing, let us quickly jump on the interview.  

Rajeev: What made you want to get into testing? 

Daniel: Like many other software testers from our community, I fell into software testing. Back in 2007, I started as a working student at IBM and they put me into testing because they had no idea what to do with me. However, I was happy about this, because I learned about software testing at the university in an engineering class and I was hooked on the topic.  

During this time, I was doing testing like I thought it was the right way to do it. I read books about testing that helped me to get more into the topic. At the end of my studies, I wrote my thesis about software testing, too.  

After that, I got my first job as a professional software tester and since then I have been enjoying what a tester is doing. I also shared my personal story in a YouTube video: https://youtu.be/UOg1q4SO-cQ 

Rajeev: What are you excited to learn more about this year? 

Daniel: At the beginning of 2022, I started my YouTube channel about software testing https://www.youtube.com/c/DanielKnott. For years already I wanted to start my own channel, but I never started, but this year I thought, it’s the right timing for it.  

So, I started it and I already learned a lot about video recording and editing and I am still learning about the ideal setup to record a video in terms of light and room setting. In my professional career, I am looking forward to learning more about how to successfully lead a software testing department. 

Rajeev: Have you been working on any new books? 

Daniel:  So far not. I am in talks with my publisher about the second edition of my book. Maybe I can give an update on this topic in the next weeks and months. 

Rajeev: What should be the primary criteria while planning to perform end-to-end mobile testing? 

Daniel: From my point of view, there is no primary criteria when testing software for mobile devices. Testing mobile apps is a complex task. However, the focus should always be the customer of the mobile app. Depending on the customer, a mobile tester can define the testing strategy. 

For example, it’s important to know what devices I need for the testing activities. What is the environment where the app will be used? 

If this data is available, the team and the tester can focus on the devices for testing. Furthermore, it’s important as a tester to have a close relationship with the product manager to talk and discuss the feature requirements and to have the quality aspects in mind from day 0 of a new product feature. Once a feature has been developed, it’s time for testing activities.  

In a healthy development team, everyone is performing testing, from product manager to tester. The mobile tester can for example focus on the manual testing part of the acceptance criteria and check that all are met. In the best case, the tester is performing the tests outside of the office. At the same time, the developers can focus on the automated checks that are needed for the product. If all the testing efforts look good a new app version can be released to the customers. 

Rajeev: How often should a mobile application be tested? 

Daniel: For sure before every release. However, quality should always have the highest priority for mobile apps. Mobile users have a high expectation of mobile apps and can easily leave bad feedback in the app stores and switch to another app with some taps. A team should invest time and money in setting up a CI/CD system that is able to execute the automated checks whenever there is a code change. With such measures in place, a team can change the code with confidence and release it faster to the customers. 

Rajeev: Which tech influencer inspires you the most? 

Daniel: I'm not sure if I would call them influencers, but there are so many awesome people in the testing community who are doing great things. And it’s hard for me to list some of them while I bet, I miss many other great software testers. I recommend being on Twitter and searching for #softwaretesting and you will find many great testers who do cool things for the community. That inspires me a lot. 

Rajeev: What’s your main piece of advice for Testers in 2022? 

Daniel: That is not easy to answer, depending on the industry one is working in it will look different. However, what I usually recommend is to keep up with the ever-changing technology space. Look what is happening in your industry, what challenges are coming up and try to learn the required skills. 

Rajeev: What's the best way to find and contact you going forward? 

Daniel: All my contact details can be found on my blog www.adventuresinqa.com in the about me (https://adventuresinqa.com/about/) Section. 

We hope the session helped you explore some new dynamics of mobile app testing while Daniel’s journey would have inspired you to make your very own start in the world of QA.  

Good Luck! 

In case, you have any queries or questions related to your existing or upcoming mobile app quality, feel free to reach our experts through info@bugraptors.com  

Stay Tuned! Take Care!