Le Xiao, Alzheimer Therapeutic Research Institute
Behavior Driven Development (BDD) is a software development practice that leverages a simple domain-specific language to enhance the effectiveness of testing within the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The medical research applications developed at the University of Southern California – Alzheimers Therapeutic Research Institute (USC ATRI) are subject to multiple regulatory requirements (e.g. 21 CFR part 11).
BDD plays a critical role to make sure each software release is compliant with these regulatory requirements. BDD infrastructure at USC ATRI provides a comprehensive set of functionalities: from testing data integrity and replicating user interactions to efficiently communicating test results, analytics, and dysfunctional operations. The scalable BDD infrastructure at USC ATRI is able to accelerate development, speed up the execution of cross-platform testing across multiple browser-device-operating system combinations, standardize validation, facilitate the redesign of existing UIs and enhance the readability of test documentation. So how to get there?
In this case study, you will read of our journey towards building a BDD architecture using platforms such as GitHub, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Browser Stack and how to incorporate BDD into your day-to-day workflow. You will learn how to set up a BBD infrastructure, design structured and reusable test code, speed up test execution, automate steps in the workflow to achieve efficiency and get a real-world perspective on the strengths and limitations of BDD testing.
Key takeaways include:
- How usage of Behavior Driven Development can reduce the cost and burden of regulatory compliance for a healthtech application
- How to build BDD infrastructure from ground-up using modern technologies that are maintainable, scalable and automated
- How to incorporate BDD in day-to-day agile development-deployment processes
- How this infrastructure will help in creating rich documentation
Le Xiao, 2019 Technical Presentation, Paper, Slides
