The last time I mentioned about Getting Out of Comfort Zone, I anticipated great learning experience, but I wasn’t ready for surprises! I wanted to participate in the Weekend Testers (Chennai Chapter) and test a CSS Menu Builder application.
Charter
Cross Browser compatibility testing of IzzyMenu using IE 8.0 and FF 3.0 browsers.
Experience Report
IzzyMenu did not have a direct hyperlink which could be tested using a cross browser compatibility testing tool for IE 8.0 and FF 3.0. I as a user had to navigate to the menu page explicitly. I tested for alignment, layout, font size, color, positioning of tabs in the layout, hyperlinks, look and feel of the entire application, print, print preview option and a lot more. Tested the same set of test ideas in FF 3.0. Ok, finding usability and functional bugs while I look for compatibility bugs– Murphy’s Law? Found about 3 compatibility bugs, but that is not important for me right now. What is important is what is new to me in this testing exercise and what I learned while testing IzzyMenu.
Learnings
1. Though I had performed compatibility testing previously, while testing IzzyMenu, I had a mental block testing it. I had not performed compatibility testing on websites for a start. I have to take care of this in future.
2. When learning to test with a charter that I have not done before, it invites some prior learning on how to do. When I jumped at IzzyMenu without deciding what to test, there was a block. I did not see anything reasonable to test. My approach was wrong here and I had to change it.
3. Do not confine yourself to 90 minutes Sessions while you are learning to test out of your comfort zone. It more or less extends beyond 90 minutes timeframe. Ideally, its better not to have any time limit while testing this way.
4. Note down all the bottlenecks or choking points that you face while testing and sort it out yourself. This way, you will slowly realize that what you saw as a bottleneck is not a bottleneck at all. And that will be your Wow moment.
5. You may not find bugs all the time. Absence of bugs or lack of skills to find bugs(which tricks you to think that bugs are absent) does not mean you are a bad tester. You probably did not look at the right places and this can be improved with continuous practice.
6. From time to time, we should get together with people from different perspectives and watch them test. Trust Me, the first time you do this, you may think you are a horrible tester. You may be one too. The next time when you watch them test, it will be one of the coolest ways of learning and testing and you would do more of it more often.
Happy Testing,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
04 October, 2009
02 October, 2009
Do you heed to bugs in blogger anymore?
I know how pathetic blogger has been. You readers who use blogger or read blogs on blogger would know how pathetic it is. At one time, I was so frustrated with blogger that I decided to move to Wordpress, but then, I read a bad experience report on Wordpress and decided to wait for a better one. While I continue to wait (or decide to buy my own domain), I found an interesting observation on blogger today (while you say No, Not Again).
Typing any URL say http://curioustester.blogspot.com/2009/10/interesting-bug-in-yahoo-messenger.html in the body of the blog post does not convert it to a hyperlink automatically(this happens automatically in word, excel and powerpoint to name a few). So blogger expects you to use the 'Insert Link' option available in Blogger editor to convert it to a hyperlink.
Do you think this is normal?
Do you have a blogger bug story to share?
Do you think there is a better blogging platform you know of?
Happy Sharing,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
Typing any URL say http://curioustester.blogspot.com/2009/10/interesting-bug-in-yahoo-messenger.html in the body of the blog post does not convert it to a hyperlink automatically(this happens automatically in word, excel and powerpoint to name a few). So blogger expects you to use the 'Insert Link' option available in Blogger editor to convert it to a hyperlink.
Do you think this is normal?
Do you have a blogger bug story to share?
Do you think there is a better blogging platform you know of?
Happy Sharing,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
01 October, 2009
Interesting Bug in Yahoo Messenger
I have been busy in an internal product training for last 3 days along with my colleague cum mentee Narain Mittal. Today afternoon, product trainer Ravi messaged me on Yahoo Messenger that the training is postponed to 3.30 PM. He requested me to inform Narain as well.
Chat text on my chat window
Ravi: we will have KT at 3:30pm
Pari: sure.
I copied Ravi’s chat message and pasted it onto Narain’s chat window as below:
Chat text on Narain’s chat window
Ravi: we will have KT at 3:30pm
Ravi is typing a message.
Pari: sure.
If you observe the chat text on Narain’s chat window, 'Ravi is typing a message.' is an additional message here. Interestingly, this is not visible in my chat window.
Inference
Additional message is visible only when I copy the chat text from my chat window to narain’s chat window. It looks to me that the text is plain hidden on my chat window. However, explicitly copying the text using Ctrl-C or Copy options will copy the hidden text as well. This happens to another message ‘Last message received on 10/1/2009 at 3:08 PM’ as well. I checked this on Gmail chat and this bug is not prevalent on gmail chat.
Any thoughts on this bug?
Happy Investigating,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
Chat text on my chat window
Ravi: we will have KT at 3:30pm
Pari: sure.
I copied Ravi’s chat message and pasted it onto Narain’s chat window as below:
Chat text on Narain’s chat window
Ravi: we will have KT at 3:30pm
Ravi is typing a message.
Pari: sure.
If you observe the chat text on Narain’s chat window, 'Ravi is typing a message.' is an additional message here. Interestingly, this is not visible in my chat window.
Inference
Additional message is visible only when I copy the chat text from my chat window to narain’s chat window. It looks to me that the text is plain hidden on my chat window. However, explicitly copying the text using Ctrl-C or Copy options will copy the hidden text as well. This happens to another message ‘Last message received on 10/1/2009 at 3:08 PM’ as well. I checked this on Gmail chat and this bug is not prevalent on gmail chat.
Any thoughts on this bug?
Happy Investigating,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
29 September, 2009
Interviews and Jobs
Why would you move out of your job? Why would anyone move out of his/her current job? I bet, its not just MONEY all the time. Each one of us wants to be rich, but that does not mean that we would be spending 8-10 hours/day at work just for money without enjoying what we do, without growing in the area of our liking and expertise, without learning new stuff for self improvement etc. All said and done, we still look out for our dream job each time and after we do land up in one such dream job, we finally end up thinking this is not THE JOB FOR ME.
Coming to the point. Pradeep Soundararajan is writing a book on ‘Interviews and Jobs'. Would you be interested? Why would you not be interested? If you still plan to attend interviews in each of your dream companies and figure out what works in each company and how to get a job there, then nobody is gonna stop you. But do you have the time that it demands? If you don’t, then how about this? Interviews and Jobs. On the website, you will get to see and read cool stuff that might land you in your dream job or atleast give a big nudge towards finding one. Check out the website and provide your feedback. Do read the Teaser of the book. If you want to know more, Check HERE.
It’s Better to Try and Fail Than to Have Never Tried At All.
Happy Reading,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
Coming to the point. Pradeep Soundararajan is writing a book on ‘Interviews and Jobs'. Would you be interested? Why would you not be interested? If you still plan to attend interviews in each of your dream companies and figure out what works in each company and how to get a job there, then nobody is gonna stop you. But do you have the time that it demands? If you don’t, then how about this? Interviews and Jobs. On the website, you will get to see and read cool stuff that might land you in your dream job or atleast give a big nudge towards finding one. Check out the website and provide your feedback. Do read the Teaser of the book. If you want to know more, Check HERE.
It’s Better to Try and Fail Than to Have Never Tried At All.
Happy Reading,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
27 September, 2009
Bangalore Weekend Testing 9 (BWT – 9)
Date and Time
26th September 2009, 3.00 PM
Mission
To find functional bugs in the application
Product Overview
Splashup formerly Fauxto, is a powerful editing tool and photo manager. It's easy to use, works in real-time and allows you to edit many images at once. Splashup runs in all browsers, integrates seamlessly with top photo-sharing sites, and even has its own file format so you can save your work in progress.
Testers
Ajay Balamurugadas, Parimala Shankaraiah, Gunjan Sethi, Dhanasekar Subramaniam, Poulami Ghosh, Suja C S, Karan Indra, Rajesh Iyer, Amit Kulkarni.
Reports
My Report
Ajay’s Report
Approach
Testing multimedia and imaging applications has been a jittery-ride for me for a long time simply because I have not tested them or even brainstormed test ideas for such applications. The product for BWT-9 was one such application – Splashup. First look at the application and I was like ‘Oops! I am stuck’. I had no clue about what the product is, how I am going to understand how it works, how to figure out and what to figure out? Any online help – just nothing. I am surprised how most applications are released to the market without the basic help information if not contextual help! For splashup, there was a brief overview about the product and that’s it. I opened the application and observed the tools pane. Wow – now this looks similar to MS Paint. I am not sure yet if mapping one application to another does any good/bad in terms of modeling the application under test(AUT). At least in this case, I was able to move forward.
Dear Facilitator
I was the facilitator for this session. Facilitating is a different ballgame altogether. Inviting people to google chat, reconnecting disconnected people, providing information for latecomers(if any), clarifications, questions, doubts, understanding misinterpretations and interpreting correctly etc. Wow. It was an awesome experience. I always think of me as a very poor Management Material. I have always dreamt of being a tester in an Individual Contributor(IC) role and be able to work like that forever in an Ideal World. Sadly, this is not an ideal world. This pushes me to pursue a lot more skills to be learnt and practiced. Someday, these skills are going to help me be a better tester in some way. Respect every experience in your life. You never know when you would require those skills.
To learn from whatever happens, no matter how horrible that experience maybe, is a kind of revenge on bad fortune that is always available to us – James Bach
Happy Learning,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
26th September 2009, 3.00 PM
Mission
To find functional bugs in the application
Product Overview
Splashup formerly Fauxto, is a powerful editing tool and photo manager. It's easy to use, works in real-time and allows you to edit many images at once. Splashup runs in all browsers, integrates seamlessly with top photo-sharing sites, and even has its own file format so you can save your work in progress.
Testers
Ajay Balamurugadas, Parimala Shankaraiah, Gunjan Sethi, Dhanasekar Subramaniam, Poulami Ghosh, Suja C S, Karan Indra, Rajesh Iyer, Amit Kulkarni.
Reports
My Report
Ajay’s Report
Approach
Testing multimedia and imaging applications has been a jittery-ride for me for a long time simply because I have not tested them or even brainstormed test ideas for such applications. The product for BWT-9 was one such application – Splashup. First look at the application and I was like ‘Oops! I am stuck’. I had no clue about what the product is, how I am going to understand how it works, how to figure out and what to figure out? Any online help – just nothing. I am surprised how most applications are released to the market without the basic help information if not contextual help! For splashup, there was a brief overview about the product and that’s it. I opened the application and observed the tools pane. Wow – now this looks similar to MS Paint. I am not sure yet if mapping one application to another does any good/bad in terms of modeling the application under test(AUT). At least in this case, I was able to move forward.
Dear Facilitator
I was the facilitator for this session. Facilitating is a different ballgame altogether. Inviting people to google chat, reconnecting disconnected people, providing information for latecomers(if any), clarifications, questions, doubts, understanding misinterpretations and interpreting correctly etc. Wow. It was an awesome experience. I always think of me as a very poor Management Material. I have always dreamt of being a tester in an Individual Contributor(IC) role and be able to work like that forever in an Ideal World. Sadly, this is not an ideal world. This pushes me to pursue a lot more skills to be learnt and practiced. Someday, these skills are going to help me be a better tester in some way. Respect every experience in your life. You never know when you would require those skills.
To learn from whatever happens, no matter how horrible that experience maybe, is a kind of revenge on bad fortune that is always available to us – James Bach
Happy Learning,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
26 September, 2009
Bangalore Weekend Testing 8 (BWT – 8)
Date and Time
20th September 2009, 3.00 PM, BWT testers meet up on Google Chat.
Mission
Choose one of the quality criteria out of the following –
Installability / Usability / Performance / Reliability / Compatibility /Testability.
Product Overview
Areca-Backup is a file backup software that supports incremental, image and delta backup on local drives or FTP servers.
Testers
Ajay Balamurugadas, Vasupratha, Bhargavi, Sudhakar, Gunjan, Parimala Shankaraiah.
Reports
My Report
Ajay's Report
Approach
The beauty of BWT 8 lay in the fact that there was a flexibility to choose the mission by selecting any one of the Quality Criteria listed: Installability / Usability / Performance / Reliability / Compatibility / Testability. Previously, I was fascinated by the results of testing Nokia 1650 Insert Options by breaking down the feature sets and choosing one small testing chunk to test. I wanted to learn to better my previous testing performance. I chose Installability as the quality criteria - something that I had not tested earlier in session based format. I set out to test and loved the entire experience.
One thing I noticed in this session was that a few testers chose the much known, much easier quality criteria. In short, they chose to be in their comfort zones. Please note that if any product is given to test with a vague mission like find bugs in the product, we as humans have a normal tendency to choose areas that we are comfortable with. For eg. I love functional and usability testing and I would just jump at any opportunity to do just this . Over a period of time, I realized that other areas like performance, claims, reliability, compatibility etc are important as well based on what the stakeholder demands. Hence, as a tester, it is good to have basic skills in different test techniques if not great skills. This in turn can be improved over a period of time by practicing more and more.
The best way to learn is to push yourself out of your comfort zone. Test what you are not sure about. Test what you do not know about. Test what you have not heard about. Ask questions. Find answers. Question your answers. And ask more questions. The final answer could be well within your reach. You be your first critic.
Advantages of testing smaller chunks of the product
1. Brainstorming one feature/task results in an umpteen number of test ideas
2. Improved Focus on a single feature/task
3. Adequate testing can be done in a 90 – 120 minutes session
4. Finding lot more valuable and hidden bugs (bugs hungry? – Naa!)
5. Highly buggy features can be retested in future sessions possibly in short session say 60 minutes
If you have tried testing by breaking testing tasks into smaller chunks, feel free to add to the above list.
Get Uncomfortable Today,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
20th September 2009, 3.00 PM, BWT testers meet up on Google Chat.
Mission
Choose one of the quality criteria out of the following –
Installability / Usability / Performance / Reliability / Compatibility /Testability.
Product Overview
Areca-Backup is a file backup software that supports incremental, image and delta backup on local drives or FTP servers.
Testers
Ajay Balamurugadas, Vasupratha, Bhargavi, Sudhakar, Gunjan, Parimala Shankaraiah.
Reports
My Report
Ajay's Report
Approach
The beauty of BWT 8 lay in the fact that there was a flexibility to choose the mission by selecting any one of the Quality Criteria listed: Installability / Usability / Performance / Reliability / Compatibility / Testability. Previously, I was fascinated by the results of testing Nokia 1650 Insert Options by breaking down the feature sets and choosing one small testing chunk to test. I wanted to learn to better my previous testing performance. I chose Installability as the quality criteria - something that I had not tested earlier in session based format. I set out to test and loved the entire experience.
One thing I noticed in this session was that a few testers chose the much known, much easier quality criteria. In short, they chose to be in their comfort zones. Please note that if any product is given to test with a vague mission like find bugs in the product, we as humans have a normal tendency to choose areas that we are comfortable with. For eg. I love functional and usability testing and I would just jump at any opportunity to do just this . Over a period of time, I realized that other areas like performance, claims, reliability, compatibility etc are important as well based on what the stakeholder demands. Hence, as a tester, it is good to have basic skills in different test techniques if not great skills. This in turn can be improved over a period of time by practicing more and more.
The best way to learn is to push yourself out of your comfort zone. Test what you are not sure about. Test what you do not know about. Test what you have not heard about. Ask questions. Find answers. Question your answers. And ask more questions. The final answer could be well within your reach. You be your first critic.
Advantages of testing smaller chunks of the product
1. Brainstorming one feature/task results in an umpteen number of test ideas
2. Improved Focus on a single feature/task
3. Adequate testing can be done in a 90 – 120 minutes session
4. Finding lot more valuable and hidden bugs (bugs hungry? – Naa!)
5. Highly buggy features can be retested in future sessions possibly in short session say 60 minutes
If you have tried testing by breaking testing tasks into smaller chunks, feel free to add to the above list.
Get Uncomfortable Today,
Parimala Shankaraiah
http://curioustester.blogspot.com
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