In many discussions about testing methods, courses, techniques, approaches etc it is usually software testing that is in focus. I cannot see why the limit is set to just software. For instance, the excellent course Rapid Software Testing advocates, by its name, that is meant for personel who perform testing of software. It could perhaps be called Rapid Testing, because the esssence of the course is not limited to just software. Does the name limit what non-software testers and their managers think of this course?

I’ve seen similar limited thinking when someone was building production test equipment to be used on each unit created in the factory. For production testing there are some important factors of the tests performed namely speed of the tests and a high yield. The production test equipment should also be user friendly because the person running the test should do it correctly and quickly so that you get even higher yield.  You can use the concept of a smoke test, then take some ideas on how unit testing is done but there are several other areas that can be considered when creating the tests in the test station. Naturally you can use your entire tool box of techniques when testing the test station/production test equipment.

When testing hardware you do many checks (as Michael Bolton calls them), measuring power, temperature and so on, but you can do these with an exploratory approach. There are usually several well defined tests found in various standards with test scripts on how to execute them. Usually it is the designer who does this task. Do they use any of the methods and techniques that are created and discussed in software testing? I think that would be very rare.

Me and a collegue used exploratory approach and pair-wise testing when doing testing on a radar used to trigger a blinking light. There is some software included in all this, but I would not say I was doing software testing, rather system testing or just testing. I was not doing any verification or validation, since we had no specs and the creators had given us too little information on how the system was supposed to work. So, we explored it and found bugs that did not fit in our model of thinking. Some of the issues found were indeed bugs others were not.

Do you say that you do software testing when testing a car? 20 years ago software was probably never used in a car, but the test ideas and test techniques from that time might apply today with the cars that do have software to control all major systems.

Before being too quick in saying that it is software testing that your approach, technique, course or thingie is focusing on, do think again.