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Why Exploratory Agentic Testing

The Critical Gap: UX Bugs That Churn Users​

Traditional QA processes focus heavily on functional correctness — does the button work? Does the form submit? Is the data correct? These are essential, but they're only part of the picture.

UX bugs — visual glitches, performance degradation, accessibility issues, usability problems — often slip through. They're overlooked in the QA process because they're harder to automate and easier to dismiss. Yet these are precisely the issues that frustrate users, erode trust, and drive churn. A layout that breaks on mobile, a slow interaction that feels janky, a missing label that confuses screen reader users — these may not break functionality, but they break the experience.

Exploratory agentic testing exists to catch these critical issues before they reach your users.

The Problem with the Current Status Quo​

Automated Scripts Don't See the Screen​

Traditional automated test scripts excel at verifying functional requirements. They can check if buttons work, forms submit correctly, and data flows as expected. However, automated scripts don't handle UX issue capture. They execute actions and assertions against the DOM — they don't "see" the screen. They can't detect:

  • Visual glitches and layout inconsistencies
  • Poor usability and accessibility issues
  • Performance degradation that affects user experience
  • Subtle design problems that impact user satisfaction

Scripts verify that something happened, not how it looks or how it feels to the user.

Manual Testing Doesn't Scale​

To catch UX issues, teams typically rely on manual human testing. While manual testing can identify UX problems, it comes with significant limitations:

  • Not scalable: Manual testing doesn't scale with your application's growth
  • Time-consuming: Comprehensive manual testing requires significant time investment
  • Hard to do comprehensively: It's nearly impossible to manually test every screen, state, and user flow thoroughly
  • Inconsistent: Different testers may catch different issues, leading to inconsistent coverage

The Agentic Solution​

TestChimp combines the speed and determinism of automated scripts with the adaptability and comprehensive analysis of AI agents. It can:

  • Automatically explore your application guided by SmartTests
  • Analyze multiple data sources (DOM, screenshots, network, console, metrics) simultaneously — it sees the screen
  • Identify UX issues that traditional automation misses
  • Scale effortlessly to cover all screens, states, and pathways
  • Provide consistent, comprehensive coverage that would be impractical with manual testing alone

Exploratory agentic testing enables you to automate non-functional UX checks agentically, bridging the gap between what automated scripts can do and what manual testing provides — but at scale and with consistency.

What Types of Bugs Are Caught​

Exploratory testing identifies various types of bugs across multiple categories:

  • Visual and Layout Issues: Layout breakages, visual polish issues, alignment problems, missing images
  • Performance Issues: Slow interactions, long tasks blocking the main thread, slow load times, janky animations
  • Performance Regressions: Performance metric degradations detected by comparing against baseline thresholds
  • Usability and Accessibility: Confusing flows, unclear UI elements, missing alt texts, labels, and tab indexes
  • Content Issues: Ambiguous content, dangling template strings, grammar/spelling errors
  • Security Issues: Missing security headers, vulnerabilities detected in network analysis
  • Visual Regressions: Unintended UI changes detected by comparing against baseline images
  • Localization Issues: Template strings, locale-specific layout problems, ambiguous wordings

How We Do It​

TestChimp's exploratory testing is deterministically guided by your functional tests (SmartTests). The agent doesn't wander randomly — it follows the pathways you've defined, ensuring methodical coverage while analyzing every screen-state it encounters.

  1. Introduction to Explorations — Core concepts, recipes, and how explorations work
  2. How to Run — Entry points and configuration
  3. Agent Recipes — Specialized strategies (Bug Source Analytics, Theme Tester, Localization Tester, and more)