I like to use mind maps to help me test. Mind maps are a visual way of brainstorming different ideas. On a previous mobile team I printed and laminated this mind map to bring along to every planning session to help remind me to ask questions like, “What about accessibility? Automation? Security? or Performance?”:
As I go through exploratory testing (or pair testing), I’ll tick things off as I go and take session notes. Often this will involve having conversations with people, sometimes bugs are raised.
Here is a quick mind map I’ll use for log in testing:
Heuristics for testing
This mind map approach can be combined with a heuristic test strategy approach or a nemonic test approach. Heuristics is a rule of thumb that helps you solve problems, they often have gaps because no mental model is perfect.
SFDPOT is a common nemonic that was developed by James Bach; who also developed Rapid Software Testing; a context driven methodology. James Developed his RST course with Michael Bolton.
In SFDPOT each letter stands for something that is meant to help generate testing ideas, they are; Structure, Functions, Data, Platform, Operations and Time. Here’s someone’s blog on applying SFDPOT to a mobile app testing approach.
I tend to use all of these different approaches as part of my exploratory testing practices.
More resources
If you are interested in reading about exploratory testing Elisabeth Hendrickson has written this book called Explore It!, reduce risk and increase confidence with exploratory testing. Elisabeth also has this nightmare headlines game which is a fun tool for brainstorming potential error cases.
Your team could also go through the process of creating your own nemonic/mindmap to help you have consistency across different testing styles, maybe something that made sense for your context?
You could also use mindmaps to feed into the different feedback loops you’d like to have in your team. You can read more in this mobile test strategy blog.
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