Users change their minds. They save new items in your app, then want to delete those saved items and try again. Does your AUT support this behavior? Did you test for it?

My devs recently added a dropdown control with two values (i.e., DVS or ESP). Soon after being able to save or change the values, I stopped testing. Later, a user pointed out there is no way to remove the values from that (optional) field if you change your mind. Now, many of our dropdowns look like this:

While testing, I often look for data saving triggers (e.g., a button that says “Save”). Then I ask myself, "Okay, I saved it by mistake, now what?".

In one of James Whittaker’s recent webinars , he mentioned his disappointment when tester folks brag about bug quantities. It has been popular, lately, to not judge tester skills based on bug count. I disagree.

Last Monday night I had a rare sense of tester accomplishment. After putting in a 14 hour day, I had logged 32, mostly showstopper, bugs; a personal record. I felt great! I couldn’t wait to hear the team’s reaction the next day. Am I allowed to feel awesome? Did I really accomplish anything? Damn right I did. I found many of those bugs by refining my techniques throughout the day, as I become familiar with that dev’s mistakes. I earned my pride and felt like I made a difference.

But is it fair to compare the logged bug list of two testers to determine which tester is better? I think it is...over time. Poor testers can hide on a team because there are so few metrics to determine their effectiveness. Bug counts are the simplest metric and I think it’s okay to use them sometimes.

I work with testers with varying skills and I see a direct correlation. When a tester completes an entire day of work without having logged a single bug, I see a problem. The fact is, one logged bug proves at least some testing took place. No logged bugs could mean the AUT is rock solid. But it could also mean the tester was more interested in their Facebook account that day.

“If it ain’t broke, you’re not trying hard enough.”

This silly little cliché actually has some truth. When I test something new, I start out gentle, running the happy tests and following the scripted paths…the scenarios everybody discussed. If the AUT holds up, I bump it up a notch. And so on, until the bugs start to shake loose. That’s when testing gets fun. Logging all the stupid brainless happy path bugs is just busy work to get to the fun stuff. (Sorry, a little off subject there)

Anyway, from one tester to another, don’t be afraid to celebrate your bug counts and flaunt them in front of your fellow testers…especially if it makes you feel good.

BTW - Does anyone else keep a record of most bugs logged in a day? Can you beat mine? Oh, and none of my 32 got rejected. :)

Most bug readers will agree, a simple “Expected Results” vs. “Actual Results” statement in the bug description will remove all ambiguity. But what about the bug title? Is a bug title supposed to include the expected results, actual results, or both? Every time I log a bug, I pause to consider the various title possibilities. I want a unique but concise title that will summarize the bug, making the description as unnecessary as possible. My head swims with choices…

• If user does X after midnight, user gets Y.
• If user does X after midnight, user should not get Y.
• If user does X after midnight, user should get Z.
• If user does X after midnight, user gets Y instead of ZUser should get Z when they do X after midnight.
• etc…

Here is what I think.

There is no “best” bug title. Any bug title is good enough as long as it:

• is unique within my bug tracking system
• describes the problem to some extent
• includes key words (these words will be used someday to find this bug; searching for bugs where title contains some text)

So unless someone convinces me otherwise, with a comment on this post, I have decided to just use the first distinct bug title popping into my mind and stop worrying about bug title perfection.

Roshni Prince asks,

Can you suggest some tips to deal with testers that attempt to dig into code and fix their own bugs?

I like the question, so I’ll tell you what I think.

If we had unlimited test time, SmartyPantsTester would rock! However, if we have to provide as much information as possible, about the current AUT quality, in a limited time, SmartyPantsTester gets in our way.

So how do we deal with SmartyPantsTester?

The Carrot Approach:

Convince SmartyPantsTester the real hero is the tester who can tell us something meaningful about the AUT quality. Can anyone help us…Please? We need someone smart enough to find the weak points in our AUT? We need someone familiar enough with the business to tell us if FeatureA will solve the user’s problems. Is anyone creative enough to determine how to test the feature the devs said was impossible to test? Is anyone methodical enough to determine the repro steps to this intermittent problem? We need someone brave enough to QA Certify this AUT for production. Get it? Appeal to the ego.

The Stick Approach:

Ask SmartyPantsTester to work extra hours until she can answer questions like the following:

• Cool, you found an incorrect join statement, how does the rest of the AUT look?
• Do the new features work properly?
• How much of the AUT have you tested?
• How many tests have you executed?
• How many showstopper bugs have you logged?
• In your opinion, is the AUT ready to ship?

And once again, I find myself with the same conclusion; there is simply too much to test in the available time. Testers reduce their chances of success by trying to do the devs’ job too.

Should you log a bug without knowing the expected results?

Someone chuckled at my “?” for the expected results, during a bug review meeting. The bug (like many of my bugs) looked like this:

Repro Steps:
1. do something
2. do something else
3. do something else

Expected Results: ?
Actual Results: an unhandled error is thrown

Good testers determine scenarios that nobody thought of. That is one skill that makes us good testers. Some time ago, I didn’t let myself log bugs until I tracked down the proper oracles and determined the expected results; a practice that sounds good…until you try it. Unfortunately, the oracles are never quick to respond. Often they pose questions to the users, which open additional discussions, meetings, etc…until the tester forgets the details of their wonderful test.

So these days, if I encounter a bug and I don’t know the expected results, I log the bug immediately and let someone else worry about expected results…if they even care. It’s not because I’m too lazy to seek out my oracles. It’s because my time is better spent logging more bugs! When in doubt, remember, the tester’s primary job is to provide information about the AUT. It’s not the responsibility of the tester to determine expected results. If the tester identifies a scenario that will crash the AUT, they should log the bug now.

I’m surprised by how many people still send around bmp files of their entire desktop when they are only interested in showing some small error message displaying in a little window. They are using the [Print Screen] key. Some, at least know they can use [Alt]/[Print Screen] to capture only the active window.

Others prefer to capture only the area the audience needs to understand; they may use a screen capture app. I’ve been using Wisdom-soft’s free ScreenHunter . I’ve got it customized to capture the area within a rectangle I draw, after pressing F6. After drawing my rectangle, its contents capture as an auto-named gif file and a clipboard item.

Screen-capture-type-stuff I think about :

• I try to avoid screen capturing error messages, opting instead to capture the error message in text format, from an error log. That way the dev can see the whole message and copy the text if they want to search the code or something. If the devs don't log the error, they're stuck with a screen capture.
• If the screen capture needs other context (e.g., which programs are running in my tray, what time is it) I still capture the entire desktop.
• Occasionally I mark up the screen capture (in Paint.NET) to circle something or add other annotations.
• If capturing action is better, I capture video.
• Sometimes I save time by using a screen capture to support repro steps. Example: Capture a filter page for a report and write a repro step that says "specify all filter criteria as depicted in the screen capture".
  

What (free) screen capture program do you use? What screen capture tips did I miss?

Chances are, your AUT probably has buttons on the UI somewhere. If so, those buttons trigger actions. A common oversight is to not handle multiple actions being triggered at nearly the same time.

Testers and devs are familiar with standard UI controls. We know buttons don’t generally require double-clicks. However, many users don’t have this instinct. These users double-click everything, even buttons. Become one of them!

My AUT had a bug that actually allowed users to rapid-fire-click a generate invoice button, and get duplicate invoices. Ah…yikes.

Here is the bread and butter test:
Get your mouse over a button that triggers an action. Get your finger ready. Click that button multiple times as quickly as you can. Now go look in the DB, error logs, or wherever you need to look to determine if multiple actions where triggered inappropriately. No bug? Try it a few more times. Or try getting the focus on the button and using a rapid-fire [Enter] key.

Got any variations on this?