Some thoughts on testings...

[Mark Wieder]

Rob-

Sunday, January 14, 2007, 8:37:25 AM, you wrote:

> Would anyone care to comment on the potential role of testers to:

> A.  Point out where the operational manifestation of the 
> specifications creates illogical or inappropriate user experiences and

I think this is key to the user experience. If a user gets confused by
the UI or finds an ambiguous situation then the app is not designed
properly. Ideally you want this to show up in testing, before the app
goes out the door. A good tester will flag situations in which, for
example, modality hides or makes unavailable needed functions; label
text is confusing; or it's not clear what the next step should be.
This is one of the exceptions to part B below.

> B.  Suggest alternative designs or approaches?

Nope. This shouldn't be a function of testing. The problem here is
that if the tester/user gets involved in the design of the app they
are then in the same myopic position as the developer. Then you have
to get someone else to test it. You always know your own code much too
well to be able to test it thoroughly.

There are exceptions, of course. I've had to go back to developers and
have them expose a particular functionality or display a value in a
text field instead of a label field so that I could validate a change
of state or a data point.

-- 
-Mark Wieder
 mwieder at ahsoftware.net