Havaianas & StarDust: A UAT campaign for an e-commerce site

Adrien Sebban, EMEA E-Business IT Executive at Alpargatas, details his experience partnering with StarDust Testing to execute a comprehensive UAT campaign before launching a new e-commerce site for Havaianas' European market. 

What were your testing needs? 

In general, our needs centered around executing the right UAT campaign in order to validate every function that we anticipated for our new e-commerce site. This included the ability to create a test script that had the capacity to answer one simple question: Does each and every function work correctly?

In terms of the testing script, we needed a partner to accompany us through our UAT phase. Here is where I can say StarDust really added the type of value that we needed.

Although this project was mainly handled internally and, as a result, we had a complete list of functions that needed to be tested, we did not necessarily have experience or expertise required to design rigorous and in-depth test cases to validate each function.

In fact, this is the first time that we are in charge with managing our e-commerce site. Before, the management of the site was handling externally. Also, this was our first experience with SalesForce’s Commerce Cloud. Taking all these factors into consideration, we realized we did not have the knowledge or experience required to design the battery of tests necessary to properly validate the site.

And what StarDust did besides testing the functions we presented was to analyse our site and suggest additional relevant test cases that we did not initially take into consideration.

What did you appreciate about StarDust?

There are a number of things that I value about StarDust. For one, StarDust’s ability to deliver a great testing script was greatly appreciated. I also really valued the transparency and flexibility of their entire team.

Even after setting dates for the project, we were still able to come back to the table several times to reschedule and rearrange different test cases. StarDust remained flexible throughout the project in trying to find solutions to new and unexpected issues that arose, which led to a job well done.

Other things aspects that were well appreciated include open communication with the project managers, which was very clear regarding the phases of the test cases and overall what StarDust was doing in addition to being quite flexible.

I also took notice of the rigor of the tests that incorporated aspects that we did not originally consider as well as the rigor the testing teams at StarDust. For us, working with StarDust was a great experience. I wish I had some criticisms to share with you, but, unfortunately, I do not.

How did StarDust meet your testing needs?

Well, StarDust did exactly what we asked them to do; assist us in building a testing script to execute a UAT campaign that was meticulous and thorough in order to validate all of the site’s functions, and even other important elements that we originally missed.

Even the resources StarDust provided made it easier for us regarding the post-test phases of the project. For example, BugTrapp is a great resource that is well designed and easy to use. It is also connected to our project management system, which made it possible to automatically export bugs tickets to our integrator (OSF). Also the email notifications made it easy for us to follow the test campaign in real time.

The amount of details that were put into the bug tickets as well as the attachment of screenshots and videos helped us immensely. The videos in particular allowed us to review tickets and quickly understand in seconds the nature of the bug and how to reproduce it. In the end, these elements were quite valuable and useful.

It is also interesting to note that we were able to assess the quality of our integrator thanks to our collaboration with StarDust, which I think is very valuable when you work with third-party companies.

Why would you recommend StarDust?

Well, the best answer would the fact the work we called on StarDust to do was well done. StarDust was able to provide valuable advice through their expertise that allowed us to create high quality and rigorous UAT campaign. For companies like ours that may be under the constraint of tighter budgets or have less internal QA expertise or experience, StarDust is the right partner to have.

To learn more about testing e-commerce sites, please feel free to download our white paper : The Challenges of Testing E-Commerce Sites.