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Category Archives: QA
In-Crowd-Sourcing: Using Random Employees as Testers in a Pinch
As a version’s release date approaches, and bugs and untested features are looming large, there is a temptation (not usually in the QA department) to recruit people from outside the QA to help the testing effort. This, I’m going to … Continue reading
No Spec? No Problem: Testing When Nothing’s Written Down
Written in collaboration with Efrat Wurzel Got a new product to test, and the most documentation anyone can provide is an e-mail saying “wouldn’t it be cool if we got drunk and then wrote some code”? Don’t worry – testing … Continue reading
Lessons I Learned as a Tester: Don’t Let Developers Go Crazy With Testing Instructions
When asked to provide testing instructions for a new feature or bug fix, there are three types of developers: some are surgically precise, some are fairly precise while erring towards caution, and some give the widest set of instructions they … Continue reading
Testing Teams: Specialists or Generalists?
If you’re not the only tester in your company, then you’ve run into the question of who tests what – QA’s idea of Going Dutch. Before you distribute testing, however, you need to answer a more basic question: do you … Continue reading
Understanding Last Week’s Notes
All testers know the feeling: coming in on a Monday, looking at your notes from last week, and understanding nothing. If not for the handwriting, you’d think they were someone else’s notes. How do you write notes that you’ll understand … Continue reading
Talking to Users: Polite, Friendly and Helpful UI (Part 2)
(Read part 1 here) A helpful UI is not as rare as a friendly one, because being helpful is more of a technical skill than a personality. Helpful means informative and organized, as well as comfortable to use. I’ll discuss organized … Continue reading
Talking to Users: Polite, Friendly and Helpful UI (Part 1)
Because I am both a technical writer and a software tester, one of my pet peeves is an interface that falls apart when it needs to communicate anything to the user. On every project I see code instead of text, … Continue reading
