Reflections from 25 years of TestStand

I hit a milestone this year–I have worked at NI as a software engineer for a quarter of a century, devoting my days to (mostly) the same product.

As I step back from the day-to-day and reflect on the philosophy and design decisions my team and I have made, I am struck by how they have delivered such longevity in a market that often favors the “next new thing.”?

So, what product have I spent so much time with? It’s NI TestStand , a test executive designed to streamline the development and deployment of test programs in characterization, validation, and production settings.??????

Tens of thousands of test stations worldwide use this application software, ensuring the quality of everything from aircraft engines to semiconductor chips and pacemakers. I am proud to have built a product that is the industry standard in its space and still has a growing user base and active roadmap after 25 years.?

As a nod to all I have learned, I wanted to share the three most critical decisions that were instrumental to the success of this product, plus give you a glimpse of what the future holds. I hope product managers and software architects will use this as a guide to success, no matter your industry.

Optimize for a Single User Persona

Many different people use TestStand—from factory floor operators and technicians debugging stations to engineers building tests and architects designing test systems. Each group has unique but interconnected needs. From the start, we decided to place the test engineer at the center of our vision because their needs most closely aligned with our core product focus of enhancing productivity. This meant optimizing for development speed within the environment since test engineers face immense pressure to meet short deadlines.?

Over time, the role of a test engineer has evolved. But, by keeping our core focus on understanding their needs and building a product to match their specific workflows, TestStand has remained relevant and avoided becoming obsolete.?????

Ecosystem Compatibility?

The precursor to TestStand was a monolithic application written in LabWindows/CVI called the “Test Executive Toolkit.” Although this delivered some COTS value as a sequencer, the immediate feedback was that customization was required for almost every deployment.?

So began TestStand, built around reusable components with standard APIs, providing extensibility by adding NI and 3rd party plugins. This also allowed the integration of test steps from any language, meaning that users were not bound to a proprietary ecosystem and could freely leverage IP and development expertise.?

The philosophical decision to prioritize openness and flexibility has proven to be our biggest success (and the most sought-after feature in our product), allowing TestStand to integrate into existing processes rather than usurp them. With its introduction, users could benefit from the auxiliary features of a fully functional COTS product (user management, report generation, etc.) without having to rewrite their existing IP (test steps and measurements).?

When developing a product, prioritizing "AND" rather than "OR" as part of your ecosystem integration helps users and drives greater product adoption.

Core Product Value?

After 25 years, what still excites me about TestStand is the power under the hood that improves users' lives. TestStand delivers a lot of capability and power through process models and our sequencing engine. This engine is responsible for calling individual test code, creating a flow for execution between tests, logging results, and managing data between tests. From the start, we knew that no amount of marketing or quick start experience could make us successful unless we delivered value here.?

We allowed our users to run tests in parallel, batch, and sequential models out of the box. This provides the ability to scale without requiring extra development. Additionally, recognizing that the engineer writing the test steps often works separately from the one optimizing factory floor operations, we empowered each to make job-specific decisions without dependency on the other.

With TestStand 2.0, we introduced parallel execution. Parallelism, as many of you know, is not easy to code, and the introduction delivered a step change in the adoption of our COTS product as test engineers saw value in the abstraction they received.?

I recently worked with a user at a large semiconductor company with variable production rates. Using TestStand and LabVIEW, they architected their system to scale 196 parallel execution threads. This kind of easy scaling can reduce the cost of test by millions of dollars. It was a proud moment for me to demonstrate how our process model and engine delivered high-performant parallel capabilities they had assumed would be a significant development effort. By identifying and doubling down on features like this, we created core differentiation within our product.?

A Look to the Future

It’s been 25 years, and our work with TestStand is not done. The products our users are designing are becoming increasingly complex while time-to-market expectations are shortening. This means test requirements are evolving more quickly, requiring more flexible test routines to be introduced earlier in the design process. As user and market demands continue to shift, we will remain true to the three core design principles that led us here, with a lens to the future.??

First, we will focus on helping more test engineers complete their work as fast as possible with the least effort. This means better user interface controls and remote access.?

Second, we will continue to provide open access to a test engineering ecosystem. This means interoperability with modern languages (such as support for calling .NET 8 assemblies and deployment onto Linux desktop machines), native integration into additional test engineering workflows, and connectivity with modern DevOps tools for CI/CD.?

Third, we will ensure the delivery of essential infrastructure that makes our sequence engine available for modern applications. This means meeting modern security standards and improved user authentication in an increasingly connected world.?

Take a Closer Look at TestStand

I hope that the lessons I’ve shared here have been helpful. Working on TestStand for 25 years has been a pleasure, and I look forward to being part of its continued success. If you’re curious about TestStand and want to learn more, my team and I recently hosted a live event, and I invite you to watch the replay.