Last Sunday, I had a chance to interact with a group, which picks up an app and tests it for a couple of hours. This group is called the Bangalore weekend testing group. For me this was a brand new experience and something I had never done before. In one hour, I had to install, learn, use and find bugs in an app I had never heard of before. Yes, it had a functionality I could actually use in my life so I could have been a customer for that produce.I realised how difficult it is to be a customer and use a product for a very first time.
As testers we have access to so many sources, we have the functional specs, we have analysis of similar products, etc. This forms our basic expectations from the product and we test based on that. Sure we question the spec where it seems against some basic notion to us or we suggest different feature where we 'think' the customer might benefit. But the fact remains that at each point when we are doing that, we already know our product pretty well. While when a customer gets a product, she knows nothing about the product. Either the functionality should be available easily through the UI or she would have to read the entire help. I also realised when you are itching to use a product, you don't want to read the Help. I expected, when I was testing as a customer, that the basic functionality should be apparent through the UI. Sure if I want to do something extra, I would go read the Help. But I should not have to do it as step 1.
As a tester, we should be learn to be a customer, a novice. Forget everything we know about the product and just use it as if we are seeing it for the first time. This would help us give our customers a better product.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
@Gunjan
ReplyDeleteAs testers we have access to so many sources, we have the functional specs, we have analysis of similar products, etc. This forms our basic expectations from the product and we test based on that. Sure we question the spec where it seems against some basic notion to us or we suggest different feature where we 'think' the customer might benefit.
Fortunately or Unfortunately, the resources available to testers in the form of requirement specs, functional specs etc force the tester to think in a certain way. These resources are the end result of a few individuals or a group of individuals who think that the customer would use the product in a particular way (which by the way, could be true or false). This in turn fails the very purpose of testing the product the way the customer wants to use it in an Ideal World. This is when Exploratory Testing approach steps in as a powerful weapon to attack the bugs in the product.
Happy Testing,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
@Pari,
ReplyDeleteOnly recently I have started learning about exploratory testing. I realised that as part of my work, I did some testing which was exploratory in nature but in the past it has been more ad-hoc and bugs more in terms of suggessions to the product manager. I am trying to learn about testing mission and also the ability to put my testing in words so that it would become more exploratory and less ad-hoc.
Thanks