What the asdfs!!
Yesterday I met an old acquintance and happened to mention that I was working on skrbl. This person immediately fired up his browser, started a skrbl whiteboard and proceeded to fill the screen with tags saying 'asdfs' (and other permutations of the same 4 alphabets) with some 'jlk' occassionally thrown in for variety.
Unfortunately this urge to type gibberish seems to be (IMHO) endemic to 'software testers' everywhere.
Note to testers - while testing functionality, do take a few seconds to think up appropiate content. Go a step further and simulate the intended use as you understand it. Basically emulate a user, the effort is very rewarding as it will give you a sense of the suitability of the application for its target audience. A large part of what makes the beta community so invaluable.
'Real users' don't test, they use, the testing is a unavoidable side effect.
Assuming that the coders have crossed their t's and dotted their i's, a customer using a product for the first time is basically evaluating it's 'suitability'. This subjective criteria of 'suitability' I define as - The quality that leads to an understanding in the users mind that "I can use 'this' product to do 'that' task.
I understand this 'suitability' to be something that ties in closely with, but is not 'usability'. It is perhaps the single most important metric of product testing. Sadly however, it is rarely recognized, let alone measured. What usually happens is some cursory effort during UAT or focus group testing at the end of the development cycle. sigh!
So testers - develop some empathy for users, get a feel for the product from the perspective of it's intended use or at the very least use real language, help stamp out gibberish.
Unfortunately this urge to type gibberish seems to be (IMHO) endemic to 'software testers' everywhere.
Note to testers - while testing functionality, do take a few seconds to think up appropiate content. Go a step further and simulate the intended use as you understand it. Basically emulate a user, the effort is very rewarding as it will give you a sense of the suitability of the application for its target audience. A large part of what makes the beta community so invaluable.
'Real users' don't test, they use, the testing is a unavoidable side effect.
Assuming that the coders have crossed their t's and dotted their i's, a customer using a product for the first time is basically evaluating it's 'suitability'. This subjective criteria of 'suitability' I define as - The quality that leads to an understanding in the users mind that "I can use 'this' product to do 'that' task.
I understand this 'suitability' to be something that ties in closely with, but is not 'usability'. It is perhaps the single most important metric of product testing. Sadly however, it is rarely recognized, let alone measured. What usually happens is some cursory effort during UAT or focus group testing at the end of the development cycle. sigh!
So testers - develop some empathy for users, get a feel for the product from the perspective of it's intended use or at the very least use real language, help stamp out gibberish.
Labels: development, product planning, testing, usability, web 2.0
