On 7-9 May the Let’s Test Conference will take place. During the day there will be lots of interesting tutorials, keynotes and sessions. During the evening the events will continue. One of these activities is the Testlab, that we call Let’s TestLab. Initially I misunderstood Henrik Emilsson when we started to organise the lab. I [...]
Many of us has a title that is connected to what we do at work. Every now and then I come across titles that makes me wonder what it really means. This time it is one that has been around for some time now: Thought Lead, what does this mean? I would not be suprised [...]
You can learn a lot by testing something very different from your normal job. I’d love to professionally test a suggested law, or a chainsaw. For now, I give you an opportunity to test a bread recipe, in English or Swedish. FAVORITE SOURDOUGH BREAD FAVORITBRÖDET It should be possible to bake from it if you [...]
If performance is crucial for product success, you probably need pretty advanced tools to measure various aspects of your product, to find all bottlenecks and time thiefs. For all other software, performance is just very important, and you might get by with lightweight test methods. You may, or may not have quantified performance requirements, but [...]
Henrik Emilsson has convinced me that skilled software testing is based on invisible mental models that help us see what can be tested. If we can make these visible, we can sharpen our skills, and also teach testing more effectively. Here follows a simple example I used in class, that shows that by switching between [...]
Status reporting of testing activities is extremely project-dependent. The needs of when and how and what will differ every time. Maybe that’s why there’s so little good writing about status communication; you have to make it up every time. Templates are out of the question, and I believe examples will mislead you as well. You’re [...]
- I saw you tested “42″. How come you didn’t try “43″? – That’s obvious. It would be the same. No need to test something that would give the same result. – OK, so I guess you are familiar with equivalence partitioning? – Beg your pardon? It is quite often said that testers don’t know [...]
Storytelling has been rising for quite some years and it will soon boom for software testing. The reason is simple: people like stories. And if it is used as status reporting instead of lame numbers, it is a step in the right direction, to say the least. But when testing this idea theoretically, I find [...]
James Bach and Michael Bolton has a classic collection of consistency oracles; HICCUPPS(F): History, Image, Comparable Products, Claims, User Expectations, Product, Purpose, Standards and Statutes, Familiarity It is a very good collection; not only helping you find out if something is a problem or not, but also the other way round: serving as testing inspiration. [...]
During my first paternity leave I learned sourdough baking. During the second I couldn’t help writing an ambitious paper, or a small book, about people-oriented test design, about things beyond test design techniques, close to the exploratory testing tradition. It can be downloaded here. It contains collections of knowledge, and generalizations of my ten years [...]