Nordic Testing Days 2025

Teams in software delivery come in all shapes, sizes and methodologies. There are a lot of things they have in common such as tools, documents and processes. They have documents that confirm how they start work on a story called a definition of ready. How they know they are done is called a definition of done. Some even have their ceremonies documented such as stand ups and retrospectives etc. 


What is also very common in every team is the undocumented or “unwritten rules”. 
As the name implies they are not discussed and you should just know them. From someone new coming into the team or with a different neurodiverse background. It makes working together just a little more difficult or frustrating at the beginning.
As an example the unwritten rules could be about not taking meetings before 9.15 to accommodate the school run. There are so many others. 


In this tutorial you will learn all about the unspoken communication that happens between a team focused on the area of accessibility. It will cover what you can do to bring these unwritten rules into the light and work better together. 


This full day tutorial teaches how to create and maintain team charters while using a focus of accessibility. On June 28th 2025 the European Accessibility Act (EAA) will become law. It will apply to all businesses trading in the European Union. Digital Accessibility is not something you can do once and it is done. Establishing accessibility practices as part of everyday or ongoing practices should be the norm. For those companies who are working towards compliance, this tutorial will help you embed digital accessibility in your process and ensure it becomes part of your quality journey. Digital Accessibility is not a nice to have or an optional choice anymore. Now is the time to act. 


Key takeaways:

• Understand the basics of accessibility 
• Become aware of the European Accessibility Act (EAA) 
• Understand what Charters are 
• Understand what accessibility Charters are 
• How they can help your team communicate better 
• Experience exercises that you can do with your team 

Improvisational comedy—sometimes called improv—is a form of theather in which the performance is created in the moment. Successful improv involves learning and using a variety of skills and techniques which allow performers to quickly adapt to a constantly changing environment and new information. Now reread the previous sentence, but replace the word improv with testing.
 
In many ways, improv is a great analogy for testing. As both an experienced improviser and tester, Damian Synadinos presents some of the many similarities between improv and testing. Each improv tip and trick is thoroughly described and demonstrated with help from the audience. Damian then explains and shows how the very same idea can be applied in a testing context. Using creative metaphors and critical analysis, old ideas about testing are reframed in novel and notable ways.
 
Whether novice or experienced, you are sure to laugh, learn, and leave with ways to help improv(e) your testing!

Key takeaways:

• Discover the purpose of testing
• Important testing fundamentals and techniques
• Have some Fun!

Playwright has become one of the main tools for testing web applications. In this packed 1-day tutorial, we'll learn how we can use it to automate and test web UI.

We'll see how to write, run and debug Playwright tests. We'll go over locators and expectations, the building blocks of Playwright, and also talk about the async aspect of the operations. We'll talk about refactoring the tests using the Page Object Model, and  also see how we can use it for API testing.  

On top of that, we'll discuss where Playwright fits into the testing work - what types of tests fit Playwright more, and when they can be replaced with simpler tests. We'll also see how to run the tests in CI environment. 

The exercises will be in JavaScript and Python. Attendees will download the exercise from GitHub before the session start.

Key takeaways:

• How to write Playwright tests with navigation, locators and expectations. 
• How to plan tests and scenarios 
• How to debug tests

When we’re inundated with choices and unclear priorities, our minds become overloaded with unprocessed thoughts and unanswered questions. This overload creates a cycle of overthinking, draining our energy, reducing productivity, and stifling creativity.

In this state, poor decisions become inevitable. The root of this struggle lies in our over-reliance on logic. Science tells us that logic accounts for only 5% of our cognitive activity, yet we often attempt to solve complex problems, navigate uncertainty, and predict the unpredictable—all while operating at just a fraction of our potential.

This approach leads to exhaustion, confusion, missed opportunities, misaligned choices, and a dysregulated nervous system.

While logic has its value, it’s not enough—especially when we’re facing uncertainty, unpredictable outcomes, or decisions involving people and life goals. Logic operates within a limited framework, and to truly expand our decision-making capacity, we must learn to go beyond it.

In my interactive and practical talk, 'How to Break Free from Overthinking and Trust Your Inner Voice to Lead You to Success', I will take audiences through a transformative journey of self-discovery where they will:

• Understand how to break free from the exhausting cycle of overthinking
• Learn the profound role emotions play in decision-making—and how to navigate them effectively
• Discover how to activate their inner guidance system to gain clarity and confidence
• Build trust in themselves to make aligned decisions, even in the face of uncertainty

This practical and interactive session is designed for leaders, managers, directors, and professionals at all levels who want to improve their decision-making skills, enhance their creativity, and cultivate a deeper sense of self-trust.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand how to break free from the exhausting cycle of overthinking
• Learn the profound role emotions play in decision-making—and how to navigate them effectively
• Discover how to activate their inner guidance system to gain clarity and confidence
• Build trust in themselves to make aligned decisions, even in the face of uncertainty

There's a reason people in tech are notorious for answering questions with questions like "what do you mean by X?" or "that depends".

Human language is kinda vague and sloppy, but context usually fills in the blanks, and we're used to be able to clarify on the spot, but that doesn't work when we try to tell machines what to do, or when when we're putting words in documents that other people in other contexts are supposed to understand. This is, in my experience, where bugs usually occur – in the assumed understanding of constructs - the conceptual "things" we use in language, like "hour", "border", "flower", "write", "red" and "sound". In other words, things go wrong when we think that everyone must mean the same thing, when we think something is clarified enough.

The first step in uncovering these bug-generating mistakes is becoming aware of them and getting creative about alternative meanings, and that's part of why it's so much fun being a tester.

In this talk I will present some of my "favourite" constructs to challenge, and some useful cues to help you notice that a construct you're using should be investigated closer.

Key Takeaways:

• A structured way of using construct validity as an attack vector for finding bugs, even without looking under the hood, like you had x-ray vision.
• A list of very common problematic constructs, and why they keep tripping people up, again and again.
• Some phrases you may choose, to come across as less annoying, when you actually care about what others dismissively refer to as "just semantics" .

In today's world, we have the privilege of witnessing the beginning of the rise of robots. More and more companies are dealing with robotics or autonomous systems, and articles predicting the future, like from the legendary movie Terminator, arrive in my inbox almost weekly. Given the hype and the lack of practical experiences, it is easy to think that testing robots is entirely different, but is it as it seems, and are there any techniques from the good old world of software that we can apply to robots and autonomous systems?

In this story, I will tell you about my experiences and lessons learned from a year of hanging out with different robots. I will share how to test autonomous systems using contemporary exploratory testing practices. We will learn what robots have in common and the techniques we apply to train them. You will see that testing the autonomous systems is still good old testing but with different flavors of danger and predictability. How do you cope with these flavors after working exclusively in software applications? I believe this question will pop into our minds more and more, so if this raises your curiosity, then this talk is a place to be.

Key Takeaways:

• How to test robots using contemporary exploratory testing.
•  How to "translate" our "software skills" and apply them to domains such as robotics.
• Hear the real experience and how it was to work daily with a 4,5-ton heavy autonomous vehicle.

In a world where over 1 billion people live with disabilities, accessibility is no longer optional — it’s essential. The European Accessibility Act (EAA), coming into full effect in June 2025, sets a legal framework that requires businesses to provide accessible digital goods and services. This creates both a compliance mandate and an opportunity to unlock new markets, improve user experiences, and foster innovation.

We’ll explore the current challenges in accessibility testing, such as the limitations of automated tools, the importance of real-user feedback, and the complexities of testing emerging technologies like AR/VR. Learn from real-world examples, including how Accenture has partnered with clients to integrate accessibility into their digital ecosystems by integrating it into their design and development pipelines.

The talk will also introduce cutting-edge trends, such as AI-powered accessibility tools, inclusive design thinking, and the integration of accessibility into CI/CD workflows. Practical steps will be shared, including how to involve diverse users in testing and the critical role of an accessibility statement in building trust and driving continuous improvement.

Attendees will leave inspired to champion accessibility as a mindset and practice, equipped with actionable insights to create inclusive, user-friendly digital experiences that benefit everyone. Whether you’re a tester, developer, or decision-maker, this talk will show you how accessibility can be a catalyst for innovation and inclusion in your projects.

Key Takeaways:

• Accessibility Drives Innovation and Opportunity: Embrace accessibility to unlock new markets, improve user experiences, and future-proof your business.
• Think Beyond Compliance: Leverage cutting-edge tools and inclusive design to create meaningful, barrier-free digital experiences.
• Commit to Inclusivity: An accessibility statement isn’t just a policy—it’s a promise to your users and a tool for continuous improvement.

Private browsing modes, such as Chrome's incognito mode and Firefox's private mode and containers, serve the common purpose of ensuring privacy during browsing. Although the underlying implementations differ, they share key features such as not storing browsing history and cookies, hence enhancing user privacy. While this feature is useful for regular users, it's a powerhouse for automation engineers and testers. WebDriver BiDi offers a browser-agnostic method to utilize private browsing through User Contexts, cultivating a 'browserpooling' approach. This approach allows multiple tests to share a single browser instance and WebDriver session, facilitating parallel test execution. Like carpooling, where multiple passengers share a single ride to different destinations, WebDriver BiDi's user contexts enable parallel tests to utilize a single browser instance without sharing data. This provides performance gains by eliminating the time-consuming process of spinning up and shutting down multiple browser instances. Join this session to explore how user contexts operate, how to manage isolated tests and cookies across multiple tabs and gain insights with a live code demo on leveraging this technique in Selenium.

Key Takeaways:

• Learn how to optimize testing environments by using a single browser instance.
• Practical knowledge of using WebDriver BiDi's user context with code examples.
• Understand real-world use cases where this method can lead to performance gains and reduce the total runtime of automation tests.

Often you will not be aware of how your mindset is influencing your behaviour and testing skills. Experience a mindset shift and learn how to get back on track.

Join me in an exciting experiment and allow me to transform your mindset! I will demonstrate (live!) how easily your mindset can be influenced and how to break free from its limitations. We will do this together, in a live experiment. Me and you: The audience (or, my test subjects).

Your state of mind not only affects your behavior, but also that of those around you. You can utilize your mindset to enhance team communication and productivity.
In testing, maintaining an open and flexible mindset is crucial, especially in the face of distractions and unexpected events. It's essential to adopt the right mindset to uncover the quality of your test object. If you enter the testing process with the wrong mindset, you may overlook critical bugs or assume quality.

Instead, embrace a mindset that will uncover bugs and quality. To take control, you must be aware of your mindset and develop the skills to change it. I will share tips and tricks on how to become aware, and how to adapt your mindset to reach your goals.

Key Takeaways:

• External influences affect your mindset
• Break a negative spiral in your own mindset
• Your behavior influences others

Join us as we explore Appium 3.0's evolution in mobile test automation. This session will uncover how the upgrade to Node.js 20+ and Express v5 with HTTP2 enhances test execution performance, while addressing common iOS automation challenges including code signing issues. Learn about improved debugging capabilities through better Appium Inspector integration and discover how architectural refinements streamline your testing workflow. Whether you're a seasoned Appium user or just getting started, you'll gain practical insights into leveraging Appium 3.0's features and preparing for the upcoming release in 2025.
Outline:
Appium 3.0 represents a significant step forward in the evolution of mobile test automation, focusing on modernization, performance, and enhanced user experience. While maintaining the familiar architecture of Appium v2, this major release introduces crucial improvements that will shape the future of mobile testing.
In this session, we'll explore how Appium 3.0's adoption of Node.js 20+ and Express v5 with HTTP2 integration will deliver improved performance and reliability for test execution. We'll dive into architectural refinements including streamlined core functionality, enhanced security through driver-specific controls, and improved W3C compliance that removes deprecated endpoints.
Developers and QA engineers will particularly benefit from the enhanced debugging capabilities through better Appium Inspector integration, featuring seamless session attachment and improved real-time debugging workflows. The potential ESM migration showcases Appium's commitment to modern development practices and improved session management.
Whether you're managing large-scale test suites or building new test frameworks, this talk will provide valuable insights into Appium 3.0's features and how they translate to practical benefits in your testing workflow. Join us to understand the roadmap, migration strategies, and how these improvements will enhance your mobile testing experience.
Key Takeaways:

• Future-Ready Architecture: Appium 3.0's upgrade to Node.js 20+ and Express v5 with HTTP2 integration ensures better performance and stability for modern testing needs.
  
• Enhanced Developer Experience: Better debugging capabilities through improved Appium Inspector integration and session management, making test development and maintenance more efficient.
  
• Seamless Migration Path: While introducing modern improvements, Appium 3.0 maintains compatibility with v2's architecture, ensuring a smooth transition for existing test suites before the April 2025 release.