Can a Chatbot Support Exploratory Software Testing? Preliminary Results

TL;DR

This paper introduces BotExpTest, a chatbot designed to assist human testers in exploratory software testing, showing promising preliminary results in bug detection and user experience.

Contribution

The paper presents the design and implementation of BotExpTest on Discord, integrating testing support features and evaluating its effectiveness through a user study.

Findings

Participants successfully identified bugs with BotExpTest.

Testers found interacting with the chatbot positive.

Chatbot-supported testing may be as effective as traditional methods.

Abstract

Tests executed by human testers are still widespread 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 the human testers. This paper presents a chatbot, called BotExpTest, designed to support testers while performing 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 were capable of revealing bugs and found the experience to interact with the chatbot positive. Preliminary 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.