My take on future of testing has always been – in fact I think it is the current state now, that:

1. Testing is not just functional GUI testing
2. Desktop apps are a thing of past
3. With the advent of Web 2, SOA, Cloud, etc. it is getting more and more technical
4. Performance
5. Security
6. Usability
7. Integration
8. Automation
9. …are the areas where the testers of today need to develop skills in

I have interacted with all kinds of testers, testers from different schools, contexts, methodologies, level of experiences, and most of them specialise in functional testing. But if you would really like to be future-proof – then I think Technical Testing is the way forward.

To add fuel to the topic Goranka Bjedov did a great presentation recently at a conference in Wellington: STANZ

In the presentation she shares her past experiences in software testing, especially last couple of years of her life when she comes across some hard reality of life/software quality. And she ends her presentation with the following summary:

1. We can reduce dev time (and costs) by writing productivity tests
2. We can bring in quality by adding smart system tests in right places
3. Think performance, scalability
4. Think usability
5. We can reduce number of machines needed in dat centers
6. We must start calculating and communicating the value of our work (dollar amounts)
7. We must stop being the cost center

This week Steve talks about usability, how it is gaining importance now in whether it is software or service industry. His current and past experiences in the industry while working for some prominent clients in New Zealand like Air New Zealand and University of Auckland.

I personally have worked with Steve and he is great colleague, friend and person to work with. Always turned on and always has that great new idea up his sleeve that will make your product better usable.

Here is the link again to the podcast. Listen before it goes behind the paid firewall.

Happy Listening!

Checkout the video or click here for more: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html

Image Source

He is an Usability Expert – i.e. he doesn’t just organises and manages Usability Testing, but also does a whole lot of other stuff that is required to get it correct.

Just to mention it briefly:

• it requires quite a bit of research to start with; based on your application, userbase, etc
• Organisational Objectives
• Business Objectives
• User Objectives
• identifying personas, as in what different types of users are expected to use the system
• preparing wireframes
• templates
• and then a whole raft of things to organise some user testing, like, identifying test subjects, organising questionairre for them, petrol vouchers, food, compensation, post-testing questionairre and most importantly a test lab.

…Phew!!!

Overall it was a great session. Quite insightful and gave us some food for thought. Hopefully he will also be trying to setup a framework, so that we can work within it.

In the meantime enjoy this post On Usability by Ben and if you’ve got any ideas or suggestions then feel free to feed them through to us using the comments box below.

In the meantime Google has been advertising its cloud service a bit lately and has also dropped its ‘beta’ tag from Gmail which was causing some hesitation for companies to use Gmail as their corporate email solution.

As per the latest report released by InformationWeek, Google’s Gmail has just overtaken AOL’s email service. I think earlier Gmail used to be only a kind of geek’s-choice, but lately it is getting quite popular with rest of the people as well.

Personally I use Gmail but I think it has a bit of a geeky user interface and not really easy-to-use for someone not that tech savvy – unlike Yahoo and Hotmail. Though it’s changing lately and may be thats one of the many reasons why Gmail is getting more user base. Whereas Hotmail used to be most easy to use interface for a long time – but now with increased features (most of them are useless flashy features) it has compromised on the usabiltiy side.

Anyways I’d just like to end with ‘may the best one win’. And hope that consumer is the winner at the end’.

If you’re not on Gmail – then click here to get it.

Source