Categorising Test Smells

The aim of this investigation into test smells was to find out how familiar developers are with test smells, the frequency of test smells and their severity in the industrial world. First of all, a taxonomy of different test smells was created and grouped according to programming principles as a basis for this study. Several interviews were then conducted to find out which test smells to include in the subsequent survey. 20 people with different industrial experience levels participated in this survey. It was hypothesised that test smells are not identified as such and that their names are unknown. The hypothesis was supported by the results of the survey. The results revealed that test smells are not quite well-known despite the fact that some of them occur rather frequently and pose severe problems.