Booking Platform: Compatibility and Functional Tests

Micazu is the largest Dutch marketplace for private holiday home rentals. It allows users to book homes in over 50 countries directly from property owners. The company started with the idea of giving owners more freedom and control over the rental of their holiday estates.

The platform was launched in 2010. The client requested full website testing on the live platform. The main task was to check the look and functionality on different devices.

As the site was already active, we had to review all the pages and decide what could and what could not be tested in a live environment.

The client requested one round of full-site testing and specified what types of testing they needed. Thus, testing by estimate was the most appropriate cooperation model. We informed the Micazu team about the exact time and cost before the work started.

Three QA engineers were assigned to run cross-browser and cross-device testing. The access to the site is limited to the Netherlands, so we used a VPN to simulate the access from the mentioned country.

First, the team requested a test booking entity – a user with property available for rent whose account was to be used only for tests. It allowed examining the features without interfering with the real user experience. We later used this account to check the booking functionality, leave feedback about the property, submit questions to an owner, etc. without confusing or inconveniencing real owners.

Then, we discussed the list of pages and functionalities for testing. The following weren’t included:

• pages and functionalities the client mentioned didn’t need to be tested;
• pages and functionalities that couldn’t be tested due to the specifics of the live environment.

After that, the QA Madness team prepared the test documentation. QA engineers used a checklist that covered the agreed functionality to examine it on the required devices and browsers. Since the client didn’t use a bug tracking system, the defects were reported in a Google Spreadsheet – along with the checklist points.