The allure of using Cucumber or other “Given/When/Then” code wrappers for DOM to Database Testing seems greater than ever. Unfortunately, there is a narrow path to being more successful with these tools than without them, and it is very rarely taken. What teams usually end up with is something that provides only some of the promised benefits but at a significantly higher cost than the alternatives. Of note, it is important to differentiate the process of Behavior Driven Development from the tools designed to facilitate this process.

In this talk, Titus Fortner, Senior Solutions Architect at Sauce Labs, will discuss the various reasons why people choose to use BDD tools, and what the benefits are supposed to be. He will then discuss the reality for many companies before getting into some of the inherent underlying issues with BDD tooling, including why teams so often end up in trouble when using them. Finally there will be a discussion of alternatives and recommendations for getting the most out of your UI testing.