  Developing test code may be a time-consuming task that usually requires much
effort and cost, especially when it is done manually. Besides, during this
process, developers and testers are likely to adopt bad design choices, which
may lead to the introduction of the so-called test smells in test code. Test
smells are bad solutions to either implement or design test code. As the test
code with test smells increases in size, these tests might become more complex,
and as a consequence, much harder to understand and evolve correctly.
Therefore, test smells may have a negative impact on the quality and
maintenance of test code and may also harm the whole software testing
activities. In this context, this study aims to understand whether test
professionals non-intentionally insert test smells. We carried out an expert
survey to analyze the usage frequency of a set of test smells. Sixty
professionals from different companies participated in the survey. We selected
14 widely studied smells from the literature, which are also implemented in
existing test smell detection tools. The yielded results indicate that
experienced professionals introduce test smells during their daily programming
tasks, even when they are using standardized practices from their companies,
and not only for their personal assumptions. Another relevant evidence was that
developers' professional experience can not be considered as a root-cause for
the insertion of test smells in test code.
