Highly-Fluid Requirements Using Postico and CloudApp Tips

All software projects are intrinsically unique in the way development is carried out. Therefore, this article will share some insights into the reviewing process and the ability to identify and communicate requirements in functionality and user interface through tools such as Postico and CloudApp, which become crucial to meet high-end deliverables.

Before starting the software review

Given that every project has their own unique setup, it is imperative to ensure that the correct set of commands are used to run a local project properly.

For example, in most JavaScript frameworks and after having set up node and the database, the QA engineer may use the npm commands or yarn commands for package manager. While both package managers serve a similar purpose, they can often cause different versions of each individual library within a project to be (subtly) installed. Identifying which package manager a project uses prior to any review of development can therefore help rule out the possibility of encountering local-related cases during any stage of the reviewing process.

While reviewing the software

When a project is executed locally, the combination of database GUIs like Postico and screen recorders like CloudApp become essential to pointing out the adjustments necessary to complete a specific user story. 

The synergy between these two apps enables shorter and more concise reports related to particular scenarios that should be fulfilled within the scope of a user story.

With Postico, the QA engineer can alter, inject, remove, or customize and filter data without necessarily affecting the user interface. However, one potential drawback with injecting data directly into the database using Postico is the fact that the logic (state transitions and flows) behind that particular data is being disregarded, which may produce unexpected results that would otherwise never occur in a real-life environment. 

A way for QA engineers to mitigate the side effects from data injection or removal is to simply use this method for UI referencing (i.e., empty states and overloaded entries in a data table set with limits) or communicating with the developer of a particular flow and factor in any additional code changes. 

Other than these procedural cases, Postico retains its usefulness and boosts its purpose together with CloudApp when depicting how data updates on the server side through mini instant clips or gifs which can have live-annotation and commentary embedded to point to any unexpected behaviors in functionality as they occur.

A particularly useful feature included with CloudApp is the ability to fully customize shortcut keys to easily record, annotate, and sort out any content produced for sharing with the development team. 

One of the best practices is going into a newly introduced feature and being able to capture an unexpected aspect the first time it occurs. This has often proven to be a very useful aspect of the app and especially the ability to crop or trim the clip to go directly to when the unexpected occurs. If the feature turned out to work just fine, the clip or gif can easily be erased, even if the clip is several minutes long.

Conclusion

When the environment and tools are established properly, the review process of the requirements can be greatly expedited and improved for reporting to the development team. As a result, it is advised to be mindful of the nature of the tools being used, like Postico, to easily illustrate what happens as a result of user interaction with the user interface as opposed to the direct addition or removal of data in the database. 

Furthermore, quick access to references, as with CloudApp, can greatly impact how quickly unexpected cases are addressed to meet sprints and deliverables before the deadline. In sum, an open source GUI that illustrates how the end-user will approach the app will ultimately help to deliver reports that can drive higher quality products to the market sooner. 

Here at Fullstack Labs, the combined team knowledge helps to reach out to the most up-to-date open source tools to continually improve Agile software development.