Acceptance testing in the land of the startup

Songkick is a web based music startup which operates in a new market place full of unknowns, developing a free service. Focusing on user experience as one of the most critical features of the product. Continuously iterating and experimenting with features based on user observations and metrics. Unusually we adopted Acceptance tests (with Cucumber) and BDD while still in the early startup phase. Having spent more than 2 years growing our system and learning the pain points both technically and culturally we have lots of interesting lessons we would like to share about startups and Acceptance testing.

The session will start out by highlighting what makes acceptance testing different in a startup environment, setting the scene for the world Songkick operates in. Then the session will work through an example of a real feature passing through our development workflow. Using photos from Songkick of the cards, the people/roles and the tools involved.