How modernizing software testing helped bring Specsavers’ vision for digital transformation to life

Specsavers, one of the largest providers of contact lenses and glasses in the U.K., is rapidly expanding to meet demands in northern Europe and Australia. To support their growth in these new markets, the company has set its sights on a large-scale infrastructure modernization and software-led business strategy.

According to Automation Test Manager Dave White, modernizing software testing for DevOps has played a critical role in fulfilling Specsavers’ digital transformation vision.

“Software testing isn’t seen as something that’s done at the very last moment,” White says. “It’s engrained in the entire pipeline. The earlier we can do testing – the earlier we can find defects – the better the whole project can become.”

By modernizing testing and improving test automation management, his team is now able to test faster and improve quality across the application stack, as well as save time by sharing and reusing test assets across projects.

In the following video, White explains how a modern approach to quality is helping Specsavers deliver industry-leading digital services faster by embedding quality into the DevOps pipeline and significantly reducing testing timelines – in some cases, from days to minutes. (Read more below the video.)

 

Bringing quality into focus with Agile test management

To effectively test a growing list of applications on an Agile timeline, Specsavers needed to overhaul legacy tools and processes. Before implementing Tricentis qTest, it was difficult to share test cases and scripts between teams, or to effectively assess release readiness.

The problem compounded when the team’s strategy shifted toward open source test automation, which doesn’t integrate well with legacy tools. Specsavers automates tests using the Serenity BDD library with Selenium, but results were difficult to see in the legacy test management solution.

“We’re looking to do very quick deployments, every two weeks, and reporting on that from qTest is going to be pivotal to how this works,” White says.

With qTest, White and the team can assess testing progress holistically, whether they’re testing manually, with Serenity BDD tests, or with other test automation tools. Testing is now integrated across the software delivery pipeline through qTest, from Jira to Jenkins, so all collaborators can understand testing progress and assess release readiness at a glance.

Testers can now share test assets and results across projects, teams, and tools, and the team can more effectively manage and scale test automation. With these modern tools and integrations in place, Specsavers has created a solid foundation for increasing testing scope, shortening delivery timelines, and improving software quality.

Modernizing software testing for DevOps: Two key milestones

“Without qTest,” White says, I believe this whole transformation program would not be achievable. qTest brings everyone together in a meetable place.”

Specsavers has achieved a significant reduction in testing timelines in two key areas: Testing the API suite, previously a four-day process, can now be completed in four minutes. For Specsavers’ main consent application, the testing timeline has shrunk from two days to under two minutes.