Having been a part of a few Selenium conferences before, I had a feeling about how great the 2025 edition was going to be. So three of my trivago colleagues and I set off to travel to Valencia, Spain to attend the conference.
Fun fact beforehand: all four of us submitted talks and all of them were rejected. Nevertheless, we were there to be part of it up close.
2025-03-26 – Travel day
I took a flight from Düsseldorf to Munich and then got on the plane to Valencia Airport. There I made the acquaintance of the Spanish metro, which took me quickly and reliably to the vicinity of my hotel.
I didn’t arrive until 6.30pm, but I still had time to take a walk along the beach. This gave me a good feeling about Valencia as a location.
I also met some of the speakers at the hotel and as the Selenium community is generally very open and friendly, we had a nice chat straight away.
2025-03-27 – Conference day 1
Time for the first day of two pretty packed conference days!
The location
Fortunately, my hotel was only a ten-minute walk from the venue. And what a venue it was!
‘Veles e vents’ is an impressive building right next to Valencia’s marina. The conference took place on the second and third floor, with a breathtaking view of the marina, the beach and the city.
The cool thing was that the terrace went around the whole building, so you could always stand in the sun. This is where most of the break-time chats took place.
To be honest, it was sometimes hard to follow the conversations because you just wanted to look out of the window instead.
Oh yes, where was I… Right! The talks!
Selenium & Appium: State of the Union
After a nice welcoming speach by Diego Molina, the head organizer of the conference, it was time for the keynote.
In “Selenium & Appium: State of the Union”, Maaret Pyhäjärvi, Jonathan Lipps and Puja Jagani gave an overview of the current state of the two projects and what is planned for the near and far future. For me, it was especially interesting to see the closer relationship of Appium and Selenium in terms of compatibility and dependency.
Of course, this is also clear because there is now a joint conference.
Accessibility 101-102: What every tester should know about digital accessibility
Accessibility is an important topic, especially in view of the new European regulations. This presentation by Gerwin Vaatstra and Renate Roke had some useful information, but it could have been presented in a more understandable and visual way.
Unfortunately, for me, all that remained was a relatively dry overview of the European Accessibility Act.
Parallel Testing Redefined: The Browserpooling Method
Puja Jagani succeeded in presenting the complex topic of test parallelisation using a single browser clearly and comprehensibly. This was the first time I saw a…
