Can a Chatbot Support Exploratory Software Testing? Preliminary Results

Rubens Copche, Yohan Duarte, Vinicius Durelli, Marcelo Eler, Andre Endo

2024

Abstract

Tests executed by human testers are still widely used in practice and fill the gap left by limitations of automated approaches. Among the human-centered approaches, exploratory testing is the de facto approach in agile teams. Although it is focused on the expertise and creativity of the tester, the activity of exploratory testing may benefit from support provided by an automated agent that interacts with human testers. We set out to develop a chatbot named BotExpTest, specifically designed to assist testers in conducting exploratory tests of software applications. We implemented BotExpTest on top of the instant messaging social platform Discord; this version includes functionalities to report bugs and issues, time management of test sessions, guidelines for app testing, and presentation of exploratory testing strategies. To assess BotExpTest, we conducted a user study with six software engineering professionals. They carried out two sessions performing exploratory tests along with BotExpTest. Participants revealed bugs and found the experience to interact with the chatbot positive. Our analyses indicate that chatbot-enabled exploratory testing may be as effective as similar approaches and help testers to uncover different bugs. Bots are shown to be valuable resources for Software Engineering, and initiatives like BotExpTest may help to improve the effectiveness of testing activities like exploratory testing.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Copche R., Duarte Y., Durelli V., Eler M. and Endo A. (2024). Can a Chatbot Support Exploratory Software Testing? Preliminary Results. In Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 2: ICEIS; ISBN 978-989-758-692-7, SciTePress, pages 159-166. DOI: 10.5220/0012572400003690

in Bibtex Style

@conference{iceis24,
author={Rubens Copche and Yohan Duarte and Vinicius Durelli and Marcelo Eler and Andre Endo},
title={Can a Chatbot Support Exploratory Software Testing? Preliminary Results},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 2: ICEIS},
year={2024},
pages={159-166},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0012572400003690},
isbn={978-989-758-692-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 2: ICEIS
TI - Can a Chatbot Support Exploratory Software Testing? Preliminary Results
SN - 978-989-758-692-7
AU - Copche R.
AU - Duarte Y.
AU - Durelli V.
AU - Eler M.
AU - Endo A.
PY - 2024
SP - 159
EP - 166
DO - 10.5220/0012572400003690
PB - SciTePress