01 August, 2009

Paired Testing at a Distance - Part 1

Yet another TE(Thriller Experience) in Testing. Myself and my friend Ajay teamed up on Saturday night at 8.15pm to test a website. Website testing - A lot of us would have tested several websites both big and small. Now the website we thought of testing was http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php (It was Ajay’s idea to test this website).

What is Vischeck?
Vischeck is a way of showing you what things look like to someone who is color blind. The first thought that came to my mind was I am not color blind! As a person who is not color blind, testing a website which is caters to color blind people seemed a little unjustified. However, it challenged me to figure out what a non-color blind person like me could infer from such a website.

Summary of Paired Testing
Myself and Ajay agreed upon a particular page http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php for testing. The Duration was 30 minutes for testing and 30 minutes for discussing the issues we found. It was a challenge to interact with each other as we were not face to face, but on Google Chat! Start 8.36 pm and we got disconnected from each other and started testing. We decided to regroup(via chat) at 9.06 pm and discuss the issues. At 9.06 pm, we stopped our testing effort and started discussing the issues. Please find my experience report HERE. You can find Ajay’s experience report HERE.

What went right?
1. Good number of defects in 30 minutes time
2. Good quality of defects in 30 minutes time

What went wrong?
1. Limited knowledge of the website which caters to color blind people
2. Limited knowledge about the expectations of the color blind people
3. Limited time. I think 30 minutes was too short for me to absorb information about the website and test it at the same time
4. Did not test with multiple browsers
5. Was suffering with severe backache(probably slightly reduced productivity)

What could have been better?
1. Should have brainstormed about the product before testing
2. Documentation could have been better for the defects
3. Screenshots were not captured to detect more defects (Hunger for more defects stopped me from taking screenshots of the issues)
4. Wasted some time in the 30 minutes of testing getting some queries answered and doubts clarified(Unclear mission). I would have loved the idea of being seated next to Ajay and validate each defect as we find them, but in this case we were interacting on chat which ate up a little time exchanging information during testing.

To summarise, it was encouraging to see how the defect count can go up while two or more testers pair up to find issues at the same time. For myself and Ajay, it was Different perspectives, Two People and One Mission. This worked really well, Looking forward to a lot more testing challenges as part of Paired Testing.

I would like to thank Ajay for his Valuable Time and Passion :-)

Pair up while testing - it ROCKS!
Happy Testing,
Pari – http://curioustester.blogspot.com

7 comments:

  1. Hi Pari,

    I suppose this website is not for color blind people.
    It is for people who are not color blind to visualize the website/image when seen by color blind people. :)

    Regards,
    Ajay

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think what you have mentioned is one of the contexts Ajay. This wesbite does help normal people to look at the world in the eyes of color blind people. However, the main audience are the people with Color Vision deficiency. If I am color blind and I cannot distinguish between Red and Green colors, then that becomes a problem if I am amidst people who are normal. In such situations, such websites would be very handy.

    Happy Testing,
    Pari

    ReplyDelete
  3. No Pari, I'm sorry to say that I don't agree with your points. How do you think this website would be useful to someone who is colorblind.

    A person who is colorblind will not be able to see the original colors.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "A person who is colorblind will not be able to see the original colors"

    This is exactly what I am saying. Since a color blind person cannot see the colors, he/she would need a simulator to see the colors differently.

    For eg. Using the Deuteranope (a form of red/green color deficit) color vision type, any person who is unable to see the red/green color will be compensated by displaying them in light brown and dark brown colors respectively.

    Happy Testing,
    http://curioustester.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. Pari,

    A person who cannot see the original colors does not need a simulator to see how it'll be visible to him.

    He'll always see the modified colors only as he is colorblind.

    If a person cannot see red/green colors, he'll see them like light brown/dark brown colors even without a simulator.

    If he uses the simulator, both the original and modified colors would look same.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Apologies. My Mistake :-(

    You are right Ajay! Had a quick look at the prouduct all over again and realised what you were telling all this while. Thanks for pointing it out. Different Perceptions(in this case, complete misunderstanding of the product from my side). I guess paired testing helps here the most.

    Thanks again,
    Pari

    ReplyDelete
  7. Had a quick look at the prouduct all over again
    --Typo 'product'

    ReplyDelete