Why I enjoy testing stuff

Those ardent readers of my blog (and I know there’s at least a few of you) already know that I make my living as a Software Tester (also called QA, short for Quality Assurance, by some in Development and Testing circles).  I must admit that I enjoy the hell out of my work, which puzzles some people, so I thought I’d write a little bit about exactly why.

1. I love a challenge.  First and foremost, I love doing things that engage and exercise my brain cells, whether that’s testing a mobile application or website, playing chess , doing Sudoku or having a good debate with someone over a drink.
2. My curiosity is unwavering.  I like to find out just exactly how things tick.  My favourite questions are open, probing ones such as:
   1. Why does this functionality not work (or not as expected)?
   2. How is this issue being induced?
   3. What is the root cause of this issue?
   4. Which ways can this issue be fixed or at least improved?
   5. How much useful debug information can I provide in my feedback to the developer(s)?
3. Working with techy, geeky people is fun.  I’m a geek with a little bit of coding experience and a lot of enthusiam about all the cool stuff that can be done with code in various ways.  I really do get a kick out of seeing something new and innovating which makes me think things like “Wow, that’s a really neat idea” or “That’s great way of implementing that feature.”
4. I like helping people.  I’m not just breaking code for the fun of it – well, not always.  Rather than saying “This isn’t working”, it’s much more satisfying to me to be able to say “This isn’t working because of [foo] and you can improve matters via [bar]“.  As mentioned above, giving useful debug information is a given for this aspect of my work.
5. I believe in making things better.  To that end, the word “quality” shouldn’t be just a throwaway term.  Nothing is perfect, at least not the first time around – particularly when it comes to any software development project beyond a basic “Hello World” app.  I had a very senior developer say to me, “I’m not a robot; I’m not going to write a thousand perfect lines of code every single day.  Testing is a vital part of the development process as it makes sure that what ends up as a final product is as good as it possibly can be.”

These are the main reasons why I get a kick out of testing things; it’s not the end of the list by a long shot, but most of the other stuff I could write about would just end up as subsets of the above.  What aspects of your work do you like and why?

Cards go MOO

Essential to any good business is making a good impression.  One step in that process is having good quality, eye-catching, well-designed stationery – especially business cards – which is why I’m a big fan of MOO.com and what they do.  I’ve ordered business cards from them a few times now – most recently to replace the previous batch that was all but used up when I was giving them out like candy at the Silicon Milkroundabout event about a month ago.  I love the quality of the card stock they use, the myriads of different graphical options, the sheer configurability of just about everything that is part of the design process and lest I forget, the fantastic quality of the finished product in my hand as I pass it over to a prospective new client.  Yes, I can geek about business cards just as much as I can about Pi(e), Slasher Movies or Gaming.

One of many possible premade designs for MOO Minicards; yes, it’s the one that I picked.

I was lucky enough to get a guided tour around Moo’s headquarters as a part of the Digital Shoreditch festival.  I was in the last group at the end of the day, but the enthusiasm of those giving the tours didn’t appear to have waned despite the fact that they must have said exactly the same thing at least three times already that day.

Bimbling around the design team’s area, we got to see some lovely artwork and in-house projects MOO have been working on.  Their office in Shoreditch is in a large, airy, brightly lit building with an open-plan layout and more than a few meeting rooms, as well as video links to their Rhode Island office when needs be, which makes it seem like a great place to work.

Personally, I’ve never had the slightest problem with MOO’s products or services, so I’ve never had recourse to bend  the ears of their customer care team, but if I did, I don’t doubt their claim to have an average response time of 3 business hours to enquiries.  All of the staff – not just those in customer care – genuinely do exactly that.  Care.  They care about each customer, their orders, their products, the design process and how it all comes together in the most wonderfully tangible end products.

Possibly the heartbeat of MOO is the machinery and hardworking staff they use to get everything printed.  It was quite cool to see entire sheets of business cards being churned out at a rapid pace (around one sheet every couple of seconds) into a massive hopper.  From there, each stack of sheets gets cut, spliced, packaged and finally delivered to each and every customer on time, to their exacting specifications.

That was the last official part of the tour; after that, we got some free goodies – cupcakes, card holders, a free sample pack, amongst others – and a chance to chat with some of the staff as it was heading towards beer o’clock by that point in the evening.  All of the folk who work at Moo are welcoming, friendly, creative and easy to talk to; even if the adage that a happy workforce is a productive workforce is only partially true, then I can see exactly why Moo is doing so well as a business.

Probably the first computer game I ever played and also the first MOO business card design I picked to have printed. Game on!

Iain M. Banks and Kim Stanley Robinson in Conversation at the British Library in June

Reblogged from Geek Syndicate:

Forbidden Planet, Orbit Books and the British Library bring two giants of literary science fiction, Iain M. Banks and Kim Stanley Robinson, together to discuss 2012, the end of the world, and the future of science fiction at the British Library on Saturday 9th June 2012.

Read more… 192 more words

OK, this sounds a like a really cool gig to be in on. See you there?

Silicon Milkroundabout 3.0

I spent a good part of Sunday in a very warm environment wondering when I would melt completely while having lots of widely varying conversations with different people.  I was not, as my body was insisting,  on some tropical isle nor in a sauna, but at the Silicon Milkroundabout event.

 

 

Held in the huge T1 space of The Old Truman Brewery, which was crammed all day with start-up companies of all varieties and sizes, it was a brilliant event.  Given the steel roofing, skylights and bright summery weather we’ve had all day week, there wasn’t much to be done about the ambient temperature even with several massive fans spread around the place to keep air circulating and a bar supplying drinks.  Also circulating were many many technical types, all networking, handing out CVs, swapping business cards and generally being geeky.

I was just blown away by the sheer passion and enthusiasm everyone – stallholders and attendees alike – has for digital technology; the potential of all the apps and services on display was quite awe-inspiring.  Even though I’d been to the last one, the variety of companies still surprises me – everything from one-man businesses, to open source social initiatives, to highly technical business solutions, to social media services to big well-known companies already employing hundreds of staff.  All of them were there to pitch their companies to job hunters.

Conversely, the attendees (me included) were there to pitch themselves to the companies.  I got so caught up in the day that I didn’t manage to speak to all of the stalls that were there – I’m very glad that the book handed out at the sign-in desk gives recruitment contact details for all of the companies who attended.  I must have made an impression on at least some of those I did talk to, as I handed out all but my last two business cards on the day and got just as many back in return.

GameCamp 5

“Games lubricate the body and the mind.”

- Benjamin Franklin

I have a confession to make – I’m a gamer.  I really love playing games; I always have done, from Cribbage to Poker, from Chess to Settlers of Catan to Memoir ’44, from Manic Miner to Tomb Raider to Knights of the Old Republic and a myriad of others from when I was old enough to grasp simple game mechanics onwards.

So, when a friend of mine pointed out that GameCamp 5 was on last weekend and that I was free to attend it, I took the opportunity to go along and savour the experience.  I got there not quite as early as I’d intended to (the first sessions started at 9.30am) and duly took advantage of Keith of Morgans Coffee Experience fantastic coffee van and possibly one of the best cappuccinos I’ve ever tasted.

Signing in was a breeze and even before you really got into things, I got a packet of plasticine (about the size of a matchbox) with game rules stuck on the back of it so you could get gaming right away.  That put a smile on my face which didn’t get wiped off for the rest of the day.

A games library provided a selection of board games and card games to play on the first floor – lot of them I’d seen or played before but there were some new ones too.  I could have just spent the whole day playing games, but then I’d have missed out on all of the discussions going on.

GameCamp isn’t like most conferences in that  it is an unconference – there’s as little top-down organisation as possible, with no pre-set schedule before the day begins.  People put up index cards into available half hour schedule slots for a topic of their choosing and it gets discussed by all and sundry who turn up to it.  Personally, I felt that half an hour was too little time for some of the discussions, especially when you had lots of gamers all wanting to speak with passion, but maybe that’s because I’m used to more structured Conventions with one hour (or longer) time slots instead?

There was a huge range of topics discussed, from social media and networking, games testing, women in the games industry, game concepts in e-learning, how to pitch a game concept to a company (so they will buy it, you can afford to finish it and they can mass-market it)

The venue – the Keyworth Centre at London South Bank University – deserves a mention as it was great, with lots of available rooms (ten or twelve, at least, I think) for people to hold discussions in, plenty of room to sit down and chat with folk and corridors that only got clogged up occasionally when everyone was going from one session to the next, which was unavoidable at times.  One of the empty floors got taken over by some of us for a session playing a combat game with made-up-on-the-spot rules using Nerf Guns.  For those who’ve not heard  of them, Nerf Blasters (to use their official name) are the ultimate in man-portable silly weaponry, consisting of a huge plethora of toy guns designed to fire lightweight foam projectiles which are nigh on impossible to hurt someone with – perfect for those of us who got bored of yelling out “Pew pew pew!” during all those live-action games of gun combat you loved to play as a kid, big or small.

A more than honourable mention goes to the people, both those running it and those attending.  Apart from the friend who suggested I come along, I bumped into a couple of other folk I know, which didn’t surprise me in the least.  All of the attendees were great,  consisting of enthusiastic folk happy to talk about anything vaguely game related while being respectful to others during the sessions.  Those on the sign in desk and other organising type people were great and all of those who ran sessions deserve a huge thank you.

A lovely touch was that the Student Union bar was opened up especially on the Saturday, so that people could continue socialising after CampCamp 5 was over and done with.  I got to spend a bit of time chatting to the organiser of GameCamp James Wallis (creator or the games “Once Upon A Time” and “The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen” amongst others) which meant I got to tell him first hand how much I’d enjoyed it and that I’ll almost certainly be back next year.  Hopefully I’ll see you there too – game on!

Gmail’s new layout

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but Gmail has slowly been shifting everyone’s layout from their old standard one to their new look.  I hate it.

This is me after using Gmail's new layout for five minutes.

Now, I’m not any sort of Google hater, but in all credit to them, they managed to produce possibly the most annoying layout for their webmail access I’ve ever come across on any webmail service and that’s up against some pretty stiff competition.  It’s less pleasing on the eye, more difficult to navigate, slower to work your way around and there’s almost no way to configure it all to ameliorate any of the things that really irritate me about it.

Admittedly, what works in terms of UI design is a very personal thing – what one person will love another will hate, but there are some commonly held beliefs amongst Developers with at least a tiny clue about user interfaces.  Google claim that they are bringing focus “to what matters to you”.  Oh really?  Well Google, here’s what matters to me… I get emails – a lot of them and I user filters to archive stuff out of my Inbox so I can clearly see how many emails I have from different people, companies and mailing lists.  Now that you’ve made my Labels list “elastic” I can’t see them all at once any more.  Y’know, like I used to be able to?  Why can I have 50 – or 100 if I really want to – rows of email Subjects on my Gmail page, but only the first eleven of my Labels?  Yes, I know I’m using a tiny-screened 10″ Asus Eee PC netbook, but that still doesn’t excuse stupid layout design; if you think I have enough brain cells to be able to scroll down the emails in my Inbox, why not leave all of my Labels clearly visible in one long column so I can scroll down through them too?

I used to be able to get to a specific set of labelled emails by scrolling down the page, finding the label, pointing and clicking on said label.  Now, I have to point my mouse at the left hand column where the labels are, pause for about a second until the scroll bar mysterious appears out of nowhere to let me navigate as if it’s doing me a favour, then I have to scroll down the list, find the label and click on it.  Oh yes, nearly forgot; if I scroll to the bottom of the list of labels, it bounces me back to the top of the list again.

Tell me Google, which one of those sounds less complicated and hassle-free?  It rather ruins your claim to be trying to make gmail “effortless” and yes, that’s a direct quotation.  I nearly choked on my coffee the first time I read that statement.

Now, I’ve been using the Internet for a good couple of decades now so I know what works and what doesn’t.  In fact, I’m currently earning a living testing web interfaces at least some of the time as a Testing Professional.  I don’t know what Google’s design and QA processes are like, but I personally think they dropped the ball on this one.  I’d be more than happy to offer my expertise and services to gmail to help them fix it; hell, I’d do it for free just to have a less irksome user experience.

The Internet

“The ‘Net is a waste of time, and that’s exactly what’s right about it.”

- William Gibson