It's a "tester" who finds a bug, even with the robust Google Search

The image you might see above is a screen shot of what I saw after hitting the 12th page for the search results of "tester". I am not sure if you can reproduce that because I haven't investigated on it but I did plan to capture it to demonstrate:

"The test doesn't find the bug. A human finds the bug, and the test plays a role in helping the human find it."

Be it with the robust systems like Google Search Engine or with weak systems that we might be using, it is always a HUMAN who finds a bug. A lot of testers I know think of "test case" finding a bug.

There is a test case document that consists of 9856985956895869698569956985698459698 test cases and no tester executing it wouldn't find bugs by itself. There is a test case document with 3 documented tests and a tester takes the help of that to find bugs when he executes, observes the result and recognizes a bug.

A test case is an extension of a test idea. What matters to a tester is a test idea and not the test case. Skilled (exploratory testers ( humans ) use tons of ideas ( heuristics and oracles ) to find and recognize bugs. That's why they can find more bugs that matter than those running thousands of test cases over and over again.

Honestly, 99% of testers I have come across didn't say - "I read each test case each time I have to execute it after I have done it once. Also, I religiously follow what is written in the test case".

What happens when they deviate from the documented test case is, they are exploring and running different test. Maybe they don't like to call it that way because their management who pays wouldn't like to know that they are not executing the "test cases".

That's how customers are fooled by management saying "yes, we are running test cases" and yet benefited by the testing community by running more tests.

A test idea can be executed in hundreds of different ways. Check out the deep analysis made by James Bach and Michael Bolton on What Do Scripts Tell Us?


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Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - +91-98451-76817 - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

"The test doesn't find the bug. A human finds the bug, and the test plays a role in helping the human find it." --

A Tester's Personal Bug Diary & Notes

I was wondering if there is a way that I could spill some of my secrets of finding a lot of bugs in anything I test to other testers who read my blog. I think, I finally found a way in which, I also could tell, how some experts with whom I interact are fantastic bug hunters.

It's not a big deal and it is simple enough for you to follow, if you intend to be wonderful bug hunter.

I got this idea after I did testing for a new application that a company developed and claimed that is tested enough gave it to me to check for some bugs that they might have missed.

It was a very important session both for me and for the company. Another interesting thing for me is that the company had sent their developers on some work to my office and I had a chance to make them sit with me while I was testing. Whenever I found a bug, I said a story. Here is one such: "I have not come across a user who would want to hover the mouse all around his monitor to spot that button, which is an important action that he would want to do after entering so much data. Do you know of anyone who would like to do that?" ...

18 important bugs in 32 minutes of testing and I met the mission that I set for myself - Find important problems, quickly. I said to myself "Wow Pradeep" and then added to it, "How could I do it?"

Rapid Testing taught me to observe patterns, carefully and decode information from that can be of great help and yes it did come handy while I observed the pattern of my tests and bugs that I found. I must admit that 95% of the bugs I found in that session are from ideas that I had already developed testing other applications over the past and by registering the pattern in my brain.

And here is an important question I asked to myself: "Pradeep, can you do this wonderful job all time?"

Here is the answer: No! Not all time because it depends on a lot of different factors, out of which some I can control and some I can't.

The pattern and behavior of our own brain is something that I feel is tough to understand. It responds to the queries we put based on the situation in which it is at that phase. If I am upset over something and I put a query to it, it doesn't retrieve immediately or it might have a performance issue at that context but the wonderful brain needs something to rejuvenate.

What can that be?

"Hey Pradeep, you said you found a way to help testers become fantastic bug hunters and now you try answering something else?"

A tester's brain needs questions and ideas and to rejuvenate, motivate, push, think... it needs to look at your own work. No, my idea isn't to carry a video of all testing you do but a database, for sure.

What kind of a database could it be?

Presenting to you, A Tester's Personal Bug Diary & Notes ( right click, save and open )

I pull my ideas to find a lot of bugs from my database that currently resides on my brain. I am excited about the one that I created and I would be using it and someday, I can just filter the results based on the application I test and find many important problems in a few minutes. I am sure my clients would be willing to pay a lot of money as they see cost v/s value.


Off topic: I added a Copyright section to my blog that says: I, Pradeep Soundararajan, own the copyrights of all my writing in this blog. If you want to reproduce a part or any of my posts anywhere on the web provide a link to the blog or a specific post or if you want to reproduce it as a hard copy, please send an e-mail to pradeep.srajan@gmail.com .

Plagiarism (stealing of posts and not owing credits or claiming to be authors) of any of the content or ideas obtained from this blog would be reported to Cyber Crime Department and my tester friends network is wide enough that ones who plagiarize have lesser chance of not landing in jail.

-- Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - +91-98451-76817 - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

"Pradeep's first language is not English--his first language appears to be testing." -- Michael Bolton