Introducing testers to HTTP and Fiddler?

Question

We really need to get our testers into using Fiddler to determin page size and site speed as part of their pre release testing process. I have sat with some of them to talk about fiddler but I'm looking for some easy to understand resources for learning Fiddler.

More importantly I think it might be ideal if I can find an easy to read resource that will explain the role of http in using the web what the difference between http and the browser is (maybe explanations of the http and upper layers but in a way a tester can understand).

Does anyone have any suggestions or resource links?

Our testers are mostly from the point and click UA testing school rather than the more dynamic end of things. All help greatly appreciated.

thanks,

b

Answer 1

A video well worth having them watch is PDC 2009 session on Fiddler by the Author of the product Eric Lawrence.

Answer 2

If you want your testers to do this then it would be better if you set up something like ShowSlow with Yslow and when they are working through the site it will automatically record the data for you. This will remove any potential issues for them forgetting to do this step.

If you want to automate the process you can use Selenium and YSlow. I did a talk last year at Google Test Automation Conference where I discussed the process of doing this. The talk can be found here