Documentation

Testing Research and Planning

3 min read

Info

See High Level Architectural Overview for an overview of the architecture and technologies we are using.

Goals

Our testing strategy will focus on achieving the following outcomes:

  1. Frontend behaves consistently and smoothly across iOS/Android/Web runtimes
  2. Backend services (REST API) are correct and performant
  3. Database is reliable and queries return accurate results

General approach:

  • Will prioritise automated testing where it is possible and productive to do so
  • Support with manual acceptance testing for end-to-end validation

Frontend Testing

Front end testing validates how an application’s user interface behaves and appears to end users. It ensures that all visual elements and interactive components function correctly across platforms.

Warning

We anticipate the frontend to be primarily act as a stateless representation of backend data, with most business logic handled by the backend. Given this, and considering project time constraints, we do not anticipate implementing comprehensive automated frontend tests for all components. Instead, a significant portion of frontend testing will rely on manual acceptance testing to validate core user flows. Nevertheless, we have still researched suitable frontend testing approaches should additional automation become feasible later in the project.

Testing Methodologies

Core:

  • Unit Testing: Validates individual components work in isolation
  • Integration Testing: Ensure multiple individual components work together as expected (including integration with backend services)
  • End-to-End (E2E) Testing: Simulates real user flows from start to finish
  • Acceptance /Manual Testing
    • Running the app in Expo Go on iOS, Android, and web sandbox environments
    • Does the UI display backend data correctly? Is navigation intuitive?

Other:

  • Visual Regression Testing: Detects unintended UI changes across builds.
  • Cross-Browser Testing: Confirms consistent behaviour across different browsers.
  • Accessibility Testing: Verifies compliance with accessibility standards like WCAG.
  • Responsiveness Testing: Checks layout adaptability across screen sizes and devices.

Testing Frameworks:

React automation testing tools can help verify your apps quality by performing various tests, ranging from static analysis to end-to-end tests.

  • Jest - Popular choice with built-in assertions, snapshot testing, and zero-config setup. (React actually ships with it - see React Testing Overview)
  • Jasmine - Behaviour-driven framework supporting clean syntax and easy test structuring.

Useful Resources:

Backend Testing

Backend testing is a type of software testing that focuses on testing the non-user-facing components of a software application, such as the database, APIs, and server-side code. Backend testing is important to ensure that the application can handle the expected load and provide a reliable and secure user experience.

Since the backend contains most of the project’s business logic, testing here should be very structured.

Bun Testing

Since we’re using Bun runtime (see: DR05 - Backend Language), Bun’s built in test runner (docs) is the obvious choice.

  • Unit Tests: Validate individual services, utilities, and API endpoints.
  • Integration Tests: Test the REST API end-to-end with mocked or test databases.
  • Workflow Integration: Tests can run as part of CI/CD (via GitHub Actions) on pull requests to catch regressions early.

Database Testing

TODO Look into Postman?

Useful Resources:

Graph View