Something about software development testing
As striving for
excellence and a good writer, Communications Specialist, I spend a lot of time
to learn how you can improve communications. And one of the best techniques -
getting rid of those elements that are ignored by the reader or listener.
In writing it means
the removal of words, sentences or even whole chunks of text that you think or
how you know you will be ignored. Of course, there are a lot of subjectivity. I
do not know for sure that you can throw out, and you should leave, but
nonetheless subjected to strict self-revised their texts.
If you use Twitter,
you can imagine how it happens. Sometimes you have to work hard to be able to
express their thoughts, using just 140 characters, but the result is
impressive. This is a very useful practice, because brevity is known - the
sister of talent.
Most of my texts are
much shorter than after go through the stage “zipping, though, if you try, you
can find there are still many” cotton wool “.
But now I want to
talk about how this idea can be used to improve the quality of tests.
Let’s look at the
description of any test. Typical such a description, with tens of other steps
and lots of small details. Yes, yes, these are common, many testers describe
the tests in detail. I even presume to say that this is considered normal.
There are several
categories of people who will then read the description. If you are targeting
for these testers, who will blindly follow instructions and to arrange ticks
and crosses - a detailed description is probably the right choice. The fact
that this approach by itself is not too good, we will not discuss here, if you
chose it - it’s your right.
Let’s see what
happens, if such detailed instructions fall into the hands of this tester. Even
better, if you further ask him to assess the extent to which this test is
effective. Here’s what you’ll see (if your idea of this tester is similar to
mine):
·
He will not execute the instruction step by step
·
He read all the description to the very end to get the gist and
understand its purpose, this test
·
It will highlight some of the areas on which to focus
·
He can read the test several times to recheck your guess as to why is
this test and make sure that he had not missed anything significant
·
He will then draw on their experience and store of knowledge, not just
on the very instructions
·
It will perform the test, but not necessarily following the instructions
step by step instead of following the steps instructions, it will first perform
the entire test to the end and then more time will pass through the eyes of all
the steps and place a tick, controlling himself, whether he had forgotten he
had anything to do
·
Then it will probably try a few more similar tests by varying the
individual elements or options, exploring the neighborhood, but not leaning too
heavily on the purpose of the test (as he understood it)
·
It will add to the description of the test in their corrections,
comments, suggestions, ideas
·
He is likely to propose some new ideas for additional tests
·
And with all this, we emphasize once again - it will not follow the
instructions step by step
Of course, this is
just my own observations, but you can easily repeat them to yourself or to
their colleagues. I’m pretty confident that you will see exactly the same
thing.
Which one can
conclude? Get rid of the descriptions of tests from excessive text, minor details,
the obvious things, verbal garbage and ignore other elements. Perfectly clean
all the “cotton wool”, you get what I call “runners tests.
If testers ignore any
suggestions or ideas, or steps, or entire tests, because they do not need or
are not important or too wordy - get rid of them. As a result, you get
something like a checklist that directs the actions of the tester and not a
guidance document that governs its actions. This will force testing for the
brain to include in the testing process. And the brain - the most powerful and
effective tool for software testing services.
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