Testing! What Else?
A short story that shares my experience about a Software Testing interview I appeared some years back. It made me realise that I need to fill in the knowledge gap to stay abreast in the Software Industry!
“What Else?”
Yes, you read it correctly! “What else?” the question that was asked to me repeatedly in an interview for a lead QA position some years back.
An image of the workflow of a demo application was presented to me, and I was asked to evaluate the testing scenarios. It was a mobile application that could allow its users to book movie tickets online.
I started asking clarification questions that included questions about the type of users for the application(registered/guest users), technical specifications about the APIs used, questions regarding the third-party integrations with the application, checkout and payment scenarios, and other related aspects were raised. I also inquired about how a user would receive the ticket confirmation, whether there is any email and SMS integration in the app, and similar details.
The interviewer clarified all my questions by providing all the valuable details. Based on the information shared, I started outlining the functional tests scenarios for key features such as like login, logout, booking a ticket, making a payment, confirmation of the ticket, cancelling a ticket, applying for a refund, adding multiple tickets in a single step, and other related test cases.
Next, I continued discussing some cases around UI, like verifying the background colour, the text colour, and the font size, verifying that the same font and text size as well as colours are used throughout the application. After detailing out all these test scenarios, I took a pause, thinking that the interviewer might be satisfied with my answer.
Practical Guide to Mobile Testing[With Examples]
However, he promptly asked, “What else?” with a curious tilt of his head, his eyes scanning the room for an answer. It made me think hard to recollect all my testing experience and look deeper into the architecture of the application. I began looking at the image of the application workflow that was shared as well as going through the clarifications that were provided earlier.
I mentioned performance testing scenarios related to load and stress testing, providing an example of booking tickets for a movie that has a housefull show. What would happen to the application’s behaviour if 1000 people tried to book the same ticket at the same time, and other related scenarios for checking the performance of the application.
Another scenario related to the load testing was trying to book a ticket from the app during festive times. How would the app behave when thousands of people log in to the app at the same time, trying to book the same/different shows? Considering that I have sufficiently answered his “What else?” statement, I paused again.
“What else?” I heard again. A feeling of fear went through me, and I started scratching my head in uncertainty. Those words made me feel that, despite my 10+ years in the software testing field, I still lacked the required experience to effectively test a mobile application.
Looking into my eyes, the interviewer offered me a hint, saying, “As you mentioned about thousands of people logging in to the application at the same time in multiple scenarios, wouldn’t you also need to test the security of the application?”
These lines acted like a guide in the dark night, and I quickly responded, ”Yes, yes! I will surely test the security of the application as well!” Now, since in my previous experience, I did not get any opportunity for security testing, I was not well versed with this term; however, I knew about simple security things that could be tested.
So, I began outlining the test scenarios related to users trying to log in to the application with an incorrect password, trying to break into the application with just entering a username and leaving the password field blank, etc.; trying to fake a payment, and so on…
Here the interviewer interrupted, saying that these are negative scenarios and anyways would be covered as a part of functional testing in the login feature. He further asked, “Do you know about broken access control, SQL injection?”
I replied, “I have heard about it; however, I don’t have any experience or knowledge on how to perform the tests related to broken access control and SQL injection!” (But I made up my mind to check about it after the interview to enhance my knowledge).
I mentioned a few more security testing scenarios, like checking the secured payment and checkout options, and discussed the application getting correctly integrated and authenticated with the bank websites for payments.
“What else?” I heard those words once again after I finished discussing the security testing scenarios. This time, I found myself questioning the interviewer’s intentions — was he genuinely considering more scenarios, or was he just trying to challenge me? With nervousness and confusion creeping across my face, I calmly replied that this was all I could think of, and I was out of ideas at that point.
“Ok, no worries, tell me how would you check the User Experience?”, he replied with a thoughtful nod, tapping his fingers lightly on the table. I quickly realised that this man had no intention of letting me off easy — he was determined to scrutinise my software testing expertise down to the last detail!
Since most of my experience has been in functional testing, primarily verifying financial applications, performing calculations in Excel, and comparing system outputs, I’ve had limited opportunities to assess user experience.
However, drawing from my limited experience in this area, I explained that user experience testing should ensure seamless navigation, intuitive usability, and exact match to business specifications — including screen colours, text, font styles, and sizes.
After carefully hearing my reply on User Experience, he nodded and responded again with “What else?”. Now, my plight became more evident with each passing moment, and the frustration and fright could be easily noticed on my face.
Sensing my hesitation, he asked again, “How would you check the accessibility of the application?” I admitted that I had no hands-on experience with accessibility testing but understood that it involves evaluating how easily the application can be used by people with disabilities.
He seemed to be somewhat convinced with my answer and went ahead, “Would you check anything as a part of fallback scenarios? I mean, like, while using the application, all of a sudden the network goes off? As an end user of the application, what do you expect?”
This question related to fallback scenarios was purely a new concept for me, as previously I was involved in verifying and checking the data, calculations, and validations, performing my duty as a functional tester. I somehow managed to answer that if the network goes off, I should see some error message and the application would stop working.
He replied, “I would recommend you check and read about Chaos Engineering; it would be of great help and open some new doors of learning for you.”
This was a unique interview experience for me — one where my knowledge was tested, and I also received valuable insights to deepen my understanding of the software testing field.
A few more questions were asked that were related to designing an end-to-end workflow for the application, performing compatibility testing of the application, and which all scenarios could be taken ahead to automate as a part of automated regression testing.
This interview was truly a refresher, challenging me to my limits and thoroughly exploring my knowledge.
After the interview, I compiled a list of terms that were new to me, such as security testing, chaos engineering, fallback scenarios, UI/UX testing, accessibility testing, and designing end-to-end scenarios using test journeys. I then began searching for relevant study materials and created a plan to tackle these topics one by one.
I hope that reading about my experience has inspired you to identify some topics to learn and practice. So, what are you waiting for? Make a list, find the materials to study, and start planning to update your knowledge-beginning today!
Happy Testing!!