5 tips to speed up QA testing using Bird Eats Bug

1. Using Replays and Widget to conduct exploratory testing = never reproducing bugs again

I wholeheartedly agree with my team when our Product team referred to Replays as “like a car dashcam for bugs” — as Replays constantly records a page in the background. This means that once a bug occurs, I can hit “Replay your actions” and easily re-live an issue and see what caused it. Not to mention it automatically comes with all the technical logs my development team needs to debug, sparing me the need to reproduce and record bugs manually.

The Bird Widget (via Web SDK) also enables me to quickly create super descriptive bug reports as they occur without opening the extension. This saves time not only for me having to write bug reports manually but also for my development team in debugging with proper and helpful data.

2. Using Collections and labels to manage bugs after uploading

It’s easy to lose track of sessions (bug reports) once they stack up, and Collections and customizable labels are a great way to organize and manage sessions, saving everyone time later on. An example of how I use Collections is when testing new features, I record issues and upload them to the workspace under the Bugs Collections.

Adding customized labels also makes it easier to track progress on an existing issue or session as I can create, edit, and apply labels to any session in my workspace. I can also edit existing labels or remove ones I no longer need. 

3. Using the comments/mentions feature to communicate and keep track of the bugs with the team

On top of setting session titles, the comments feature makes it easier to add rich text descriptions where I can insert links, make text bold, and further describe the bug I encounter with more structure. The comments feature also makes it easier for other members of the development team with less context to understand recorded issues quickly.

I can also easily tag other team members using Bird’s mentions feature while making a comment in bug reports. This way, tagged team members will automatically receive a notification from Bird to take a closer look.

4. Using integration to auto-send bug reports after uploading: Slack, Linear

If you're anything like me, the second you finish a software testing session, you want to get your bug report filed and out of the way. The last thing I want to worry about is having to remember to send a report later on. Bird integrates with popular tools like Azure DevOps, JIRA Cloud, GitHub, Slack, Linear, and Zapier. But the two that I use most often in my day-to-day are Slack and Linear.

Using Bird’s Slack integration, Slack will send instant notifications to the team whenever I upload sessions to the team’s workspace. It also includes rich Bird link previews so my team can easily get a visual of the particular issue.

As for Bird’s Linear integration, I get to easily create Linear issues directly from my recorded session with a single click, saving me time from switching between applications as I’m testing and also from writing descriptions as the Linear integration auto-prefills tickets complete with bug report link, title, and description. Huge huge huge time saver (and headache reducer!) for me :)

5. Using E2E helpers to record test flow and using its templates to write automation tests

Instead of providing test cases in form of spreadsheets where I have to manually (and oftentimes painstakingly) write step-by-steps and fill in a ton of text fields, I can use the Bird extension to record a test case scenario. Once the recording is complete, I will send it to a software engineer. My team then can view the recording, immediately see the steps and get full context for the test scenario.

Bird also uses the session data to generate an E2E template (which is included in each Bird session). The E2E template enables my team to transfer manual tests to automated test scripts by using the templates as a starting point or tailoring the template to their own test scripts.

As of writing this, Bird converts bug reports into automated tests for popular end-to-end testing frameworks such as Cypress, Selenium Puppeteer, and Playwright.

Wrapping up

As we move closer to the end of 2022, you'll see new features which make Bird a more valuable tool to your existing QA and development process. There’s more to come soon and we’re excited for you to check them out!