Test automation for the internet’s busiest websites

Wikimedia

The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia. Everyday, millions of people land on the foundation’s web properties looking to learn something new, safe in the knowledge that what they read is going to be very impartial and accurate. As the saying goes, that kind of power also comes with a lot of responsibility. In Wikimedia’s case, the foundation had to ensure that all its public-facing web properties remain fast, ultra-secure and user-friendly at all times and on any device.

That however, is much easier said than done. The mind-boggling size and scale of the foundation’s web properties make manual testing of applications impossible. With automation being the only option, and the foundation turned to us for help.

Wikimedia
Wikimedia
“Keeping all of our web properties fast and secure is of utmost importance to us. Calcey’s QA automation was crucial to The Wikimedia Foundation in ensuring the quality of agile product releases”
Naoko Komura
Former Head of User Experience Programs

Selenium to the rescue

Using Selenium, we created a test suite that serves a wide range of test cases. Along with it, we also automated cross-browser compatibility testing and report generation. Together, these measures amounted to a near complete automation of the application testing process at the Wikimedia Foundation. Most importantly, we were able to complete the project within a relatively short period of time, very much to the delight of the foundation’s tech leaders who were glad to finally resolve a long standing internal pain point.

Wikimedia
Mangala Karunaratne
“One of the most important considerations in automating the Wikimedia Foundation’s application testing process was to ensure that the eventual solution remains future-proof to the greatest extent possible. That is why we chose tried-and-true tools like Selenium which make it easy to guarantee support for years to come, whilst making sound financial sense for the foundation.”
Mangala Karunaratne
Founder and CEO

More time to get actual work done

Our efforts to automate the Wikimedia Foundation’s application testing efforts yielded spectacular results and allowed the foundation’s internal development team to better guarantee the quality of each and every agile product release. They also saved a lot of time, which meant the foundation’s in-house engineering team could focus a lot more on developing new products and features to delight everyday users and its community of volunteer editors.