Screen recording for better bug reports

- Hi there, I'm Mike Smith and in this series we look at the hidden tips of software testing, the types of tips that you don't learn in textbooks or certifications, but can greatly help your own experience. In the world of software testing, the art of bug reporting involves meticulous note taking and a flare for descriptive text. Being able to articulate specifically where and when a bug happens can sometimes prove difficult. As software testers, you need to be able to describe this so that the dev team can replicate the bug, but not oversaturate them with information so they spend more time than necessary replicating it. There are a couple of ways we can streamline this process, but one of the best ones I found is to employ screen recording as part of the bug raising workflow. The videos captured at a lower resolution and frame rates, will allow you to easily demonstrate when and where a bug is within a system, without flooding the description box on your bug report whilst also being small enough in file size to attach to an application lifecycle management system. Software such as LICEcap by Cockos Incorporated, gives you the ability to do just that. Software like this isn't a replacement for traditional bug reports however. If we think of a situation where an error only appears for a few seconds in and out before vanishing, or perhaps an error that only happens once and awhile, then it's far better to provide a video of this bug rather than try to explain it in text. Recording the video is quite simple. We simply position our recording window over the area we want to capture, hit the record button, name our file, I normally include the number of the bug that I've just raised, and click save. This will start recording our actions. To this point, we can then replicate our bug. Once we're done, we simply click stop, and the bug is recorded. With the movie file saved, we can then upload this to our application lifecycle management tool, allowing the development team to view it in conjunction with our bug report. Something to bear in mind with this type of software is that not all screen recorders will record in lower frame rate formats. The higher the frame rate, then the bigger the file will be and the less likely you'll be to get it attached to your bug report as many application lifecycle management systems have file size limits. Also, I mentioned that these recordings aren't a replacement for bug reports. Think of a video as a bit of a visual aid to help people discover and reproduce this bug. Thanks for joining me for this episode. Make sure to tune in next time for some more software testing tips.