Testing Nook

Reviewing qTrace: An Heuristic Approach

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:54:00 +0000

Few days back I came to know about a tool called qTrace from QASymphony. I am sure most of you must have heard about this tool but if you are one of those who missed it for some reason then this blog post is definitely for you. This post can also help you if you are testing qTrace or any other similar tool.

When I came to know about the qTrace I found it interesting and thought to try it. I downloaded the free trial version from here and installed it on my machine. The trial version of qTrace is valid up to 30 days so I always knew that I would definitely get some time to review qTrace.

To know the tool better I started with the Touring Heuristic FCCCUTSVIDS by Michael D Kelly. The following report is based on my findings by using FCCCUTSVIDS heuristic on qTrace. This report gives the idea what could be tested in qTrace or any other similar application.

Features: I started exploring qTrace for the features. Few of the features which I found include:

qTrace captures the screen of the selected application. User can take the single picture or can record the whole session of testing. qTrace automatically records the testing steps.
User can also record the notes while testing the application. It’s a very good feature which can be used smartly while doing the exploratory testing
Add the Environment Information of the bug into bug report without any effort. qTrace records the environment information and avails it on a single click.
User can edit the captured screenshots and annotate them with important information.
Submit the bug reports directly to associated bug Tracker. qTrace can associate with major bug tracking tools like Bugzilla, Jira, HP Quality Centre etc.
Email the bug reports to the concerned person.
Bug Reports can be saved in famous formats like Word, PDF & JPG format

Complexity: qTrace is very user friendly and easy to use. The most complex features which I would like to test thoroughly are as follows:

Association with different Bug Trackers.
To handle Large size Bug Reports can be a challenge for qTrace. It’s a region where we can find the issues
qTrace can be used on three different machines with same licence.
Emailing the bug reports
Recording the testing steps with important notes.

Claims: The best place to find the claims about a product is to search the product site or help documents so I used the both of them. Following are the claims which I found about the product on the product site and help documents:

Claims	My Views
qTrace is a software testing and reporting tool that makes quality control simpler, faster, and more seamless. With qTrace you can easily record defects, edit details, and share results.	Agree with most of the claims. Not Agree with the Quality Control claim.
qTrace is for anyone looking to improve defect reporting, boost productivity, and speed quality control cycles to help bring products to market more quickly.	Agree with improve defect reporting claim. Partially Agree with the boost productivity claims and not agree with the Quality Control claim.
qTrace helps you and your team be more productive. It streamlines defect documentation while seamlessly meshing with your existing tools and processes.	Partially Agree
Automatically documents every screen and every step of a defect or test case	Agree
Capture all defect information to document an issue and submit a complete bug report directly to Jira, Bugzilla, HP QC, Team Foundation Server, VersionOne or qTest.	Agree
Seamlessly integrates with leading defect tracking tools	Partially Agree
Simplify defect reporting	Agree
Point-and-click to start recordings	Agree
Publish reports with screen shots, user actions and system specifics	Agree
qTrace is Simple and Intuitive to Use	Agree
qTrace Makes Documenting Defects a Breeze	Agree
qTrace Complements Your Existing Tools	Agree
qTrace Eliminates the Drudgery of Testing	Not Agree
qTrace Helps Your Team Be More Productive	Partially Agree

Configuration: I could find only following two ways to change the configuration of qTrace.

Settings in the Application
qTrace.exe.config file in Program Files

Let me know if there is any other way to change the configuration.

Users: I could imagine the following users (&groups) who could use the qTrace or qTrace outcome directly or indirectly.

Software Tester
Software Developer
Test Manager/ Project Manager
IT Admin
Top Management
Client

The scenarios for each user is described below in Scenario section

Testability: Testability tour helped me to find out the testable feature of the qTrace. Major testable features are listed below:

Capturing the Screenshots
Automatic recording of the testing steps
Adding the notes
Submitting the bug report to Bug Tracker
Emailing the bug report
Configuration Settings
Opening/Editing the .trace file
Annotating the reports
Association with different Bug Tracking Tools
Adding/Editing/Deleting/Moving the Steps
Saving Bug Report in different formats

Scenarios: I found the following scenarios for the users I found during the User Tour.

Software Tester: A software tester can use qTrace for testing the application. During testing he would like to use it for recording the testing steps, taking the notes, taking the screenshot of the bugs, submitting the bugs, emailing the bugs etc.
Software Developer: A Software Developer is the one who is going to fix the bug so it is very important that recorded bugs are well described including the steps, screenshots and environment. All these information will help a developer to fix the bugs quickly. So while testing the qTrace it is necessary to know the Developer’s perspective on the bug reports.
Test Manager/Project Manager: Test Managers/Project Managers are the one who are more concerned about the outcome and productivity. There is no doubt qTrace helps testers to generate descriptive bug reports with all the supporting screenshots and reproducible steps so overall it will definitely help their productivity with the quality of the bug reports
IT Admin: You must be wondering how qTrace can be used IT Admin. The IT Admin is one who takes care of your machine and application installed on it. From IT Admin’s perspective following features should be available with the qTrace:
- IT Admin may want to associate the qTest with the in-house bug tracking tool or any other commercial bug tracking tool being used in the organization. There should be an option to associate the qTrace with the in-house bug Tracking Tools.
- Concurrent Licence similar to QTP Concurrent Licence. Managing 200 or 300 licences could be a tedious job. Having the concept of Concurrent licence will ease his job.Right now, maximum three users can use qTrace with same credentials and Licence
- Every BT has size limit for the files being attached. IT Admin would like to Define the Maximum File Size of the attachments as per the limitation of associated Bug Tracking Tool and Email Client
Top Management: The top management is always worried about the money. In qTrace reference they must want to know the cost about the tool. So, for there reference qTrace is not the expensive tool. The cost is very reasonable and can easily bear by the management.
Client: Some clients want to see the issues, especially, if testing is outsourced. A good bug report gives a good impression about the testers and their organization and qTrace can help testers to generate a very good bug report.

Variability: The Variability tour is about the things which we can change in the application. Following are the things which I found testable based on the Variability Tour.

Default Save Location
Attachment format for email and BT
Image Quality
Annotation Font, Size and Color
Defect Tracker
Environment

Interoperability: qTrace interacts or might interact with the following applications:

Windows Environment
Microsoft Outlook
Configured Bug Tracker

Let me know If I am missing any application.

Data: What could be the input data for an image grabber tool? I could find the following data which can be an input for qTrace.

Recording Environment
Captured Images ( for annotation of captured images)
Input Data for eg: Text, Numeral etc. for Notes, Title, Bug Description
Bug Reports (which will be send to Bug Tracker and Email)

Structure: Structure Tour couldn’t help me much in this context as I have only exe file of the application.

My Recommendation: Although I just had a tour of qTrace, actual testing is still pending but after touring it I can confirm one thing: This tool is a boon for software testers. Bug Reporting is an area of testing process where a tester spends a lot of time, especially, if we are talking about good bug reports. qTrace saves a lot of bug reporting time. It prepares well descriptive bug reports for the testers which can be submitted with small changes in it. Sometime, no change is required. I would like to add this tool in my testing armour.

Things I would like to have in qTrace someday:

Association with In-house bug tracking tool. Also, Mantis BT is one of most used bug tracking tools. I am wondering why qTrace is not allowed to associate with the Mantis BT.
Video Recording of the bugs

Please comment if you have any question or any suggestion.

A Simple Solution of A Common Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:58:00 +0000

Problem:

A new aspiring tester in the team was given the test cases and asked him to execute the test cases. This new aspiring tester was just completed his degree in computer engineering. He was one of the brilliant students in his batch. Everybody including the management of the company was expecting him to do well in his job. So this new tester started executing the test cases for the first time and then for the next time and so on. All test cases were passed and no bug was logged.

After a month the tester was terminated from the project. As per management the new aspiring tester couldn't become a tester because he didn't have the flame that a tester must have. The Tester was expelled from the team. Now he was sitting on the bench and thinking what went wrong.

How many of you have seen this problem? Actually I have seen a few and I had been also thinking what went wrong in this case.

Understanding the Problem:

Recently I was reading a clinical tale by Oliver Sacks. The tale was about a patient who was congenitally blind with cerebral palsy. The conditions are more pathetic than we can think of – she was suffering of spasticity and athetosis, i.e., involuntary movements of both hands, which was added due to failure of the eyes.

After initial tests and checkup it was found that there was no sensory ‘deficit’. Her hands would seem to have the potential of being perfectly good hands—and yet they were not. They were functionless—’useless’—because she had never used them. Had being protected and looked after since birth prevented her from the normal exploratory use of the hands which all infants learn in the first months of life.

Can you correlate the problem with the case mentioned above?

The real problem is that new aspiring tester was being pampered by the management itself. Instead of really doing the testing he was asked to follow the test cases which are most probably written by someone else. Initially, following the test cases made his task easy. He used to execute the test cases and finishes the task early. He couldn’t learn how to test from this exercise and we all know the result. The tester was put on bench (Literally killed the aspiring tester)

Solution:

A new aspiring tester in the team was given the application and asked him to test it for all the functional and usability issues. This new aspiring tester was just completed his degree in computer engineering. He was one of the brilliant students in his batch. Everybody including the management of the company was expecting he would do great in his profession. So this new tester who was hesitant initially started with exploring the application. Think about the infant who reaches for the breast when feeling hungry. Similarly the new aspiring tester took some time but he did some testing and logged few good issues.

Benefits from this Solution:

Confident and satisfied tester
Better Testing
More No. of bugs
A lively job
Better Self Education
Happy Management

What do you think? Does it seem a right solution to you?

Reference: "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" by Oliver Sacks

What to Test in a Twitter API?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 09:02:00 +0000

Yesterday while cleaning the data in my laptop I found this mind map which I prepared some time back but forgot to share it. This mind map explains what you should test in a twitter API. It will also give some test ideas for the same. I hope you will find it useful.

Please update me if I am missing something.

First Impression is the Last Impression

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 06:27:00 +0000

Today morning when I connected my phone to my computer I received a notification from Nokia Suite that software updates are available for my phone. Without any delay I started upgrading my phone’s operating system from Symbian Anna to Nokia Belle.

The Upgrade process was divided in four parts:

Downloading Installation Files
Backup of the Phone Data
Installation
Restore of the Phone Data

Downloading Installation Files: The download process started without any delay. Total installation file size was 266MB. It is not contextual here but after looking at the installation file size first thing which came in my mind that Installation file size for Win 98 was lesser than this but that was past. Now memory is much cheaper comparatively. Anyway, everything went well and Nokia Belle installation files are downloaded successfully. Now, it was the time for backup.

Backup of the Phone Data: The Installation process backs up all the data available in phone memory into mass memory. The Backup of phone data is started successfully but couldn’t finish it properly. Installer displayed the message that it would restart the phone and requested not to touch the phone during this process. I pressed the OK button. Phone restarting begun but never ended. Basically, I was waiting for notification message on my computer screen but installer program never responded back. After waiting for 15 minutes I checked my phone and it was ON. I unplugged my phone and plugged it once again.

The same process started once again.

Downloading Installation Files: As installation files were already downloaded so this step was skipped by the system.

Backup of the Phone Data: The Backup process was started. Once the backup is completed for an entity, it is ticked by the installer to show that the entire data backup is done for that entity. In this way Installer program has taken back up of Calendars, Messages, Logs and Dictionary etc. successfully but in the end it has displayed the error that there is some problem with messages back up. The installer gave the same notification message which was given earlier that it would restart the phone and requested not to touch the phone during this process.

As I have experienced the same thing earlier so I was sure that after restarting the whole process would start once again because of the error shown by the installer program, but I was wrong.

Installation: The phone restarted but instead of taking back up the installation process was started. Two things which were surprising for me during installation were:

Selection of Language
Enter the Security Code

As per the notification message I should not respond even if phone asks this information so I didn’t give the input.

The installation process was finished successfully.

Restore: Once new OS is installed, the restoring of backup data is started. Once it is completed, I got the notification message on my computer screen.

The Job was done.

Issue during and after the Installation process:

I lost all my messages in my phone. The installer program never given me a chance to take the backup of the messages when it was unsuccessful. It has started the installation process immediately.
It’s not a big issue but still I was wondering why I got language selection dropdown. Isn’t it was obvious from my previous installation that I use English as my language. Moreover there was no other language in the list to select.
Now this was really ridiculous. I have used phone unlocking code for few days but I have removed it later and before installation there was no unlocking code was required. But after installation I had to enter the security code. What If I would have forget my unlocking code which I used last time few months back.
I have lost the creation dates of notes and that was really important for me. Now it displays the time when the files were restored. I am wondering why these file properties are not considered while taking the back.
There are three installation folders of Nokia Belle is created in mass memory which are duplicates of each other. Why three folder?

I didn’t go through all the changes yet but I am sure that I will find more issues due to this upgrade when I will use other functionality of my phone.

Now the question is why there are so many issues with the installer program. It clearly shows that installation testing was not done properly. There are many challenges with Mobile Application Testing including the diversity of the devices but Nokia should have make sure that upgrade is happening properly on their devices. Moreover, they have released the Nokia Belle update for only six devices till now so it was possible to do the proper installation testing on such a small number of devices. But…

Generally people say – First Impression is the last Impression. Installation of the application is first activity so it should be smooth and flawless for better user experience.

Search by POST method–A small research

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 19:56:00 +0000

This post is based on a small research I have done on Mozilla Firefox Search Plug-in.

The research started with the study of cookies stored by Mozilla Firefox and moved towards building the Mozilla Firefox Search Plug-in for my blog. My research is not finished yet but still I would like to share an opportunity I found testing these Search Plug-ins.

While exploring these search plug-ins I noted that every search plug-in is using GET method to send the search query to Search Engine. It seems fine to me as it is just a search so using POST method to send the request doesn’t make a sense to me, but then I thought other way – What would happen if POST method is used to send the request to server. I got curious about this and start to edit the properties of these plug-ins. I have tested multiple search plugins to see how corresponding search engines handles the request sent by POST method and found these three different behaviours:

Google: Google was first search plug-in I tested. When I sent search request to Google using POST Method, I got an error page like this:

It seems appropriate. Google doesn’t serve any search request being send by POST Method but then a question is raised - does a non technical user really understand what is POST method? For eg.: My wife doesn’t know this terminology and she will definitely call me for help if she get such error from the Google.

(See the Error Code 405. I have not seen this error earlier. So my research also helped me to find a new error message )

Yahoo: The next search engine was Yahoo. Initially I thought that Yahoo will give the same result as given by Google but it proved me wrong. To my surprise Yahoo has given the result for the search query I sent using POST method.

Bing: The third major search plugin which I tested was Bing – A Microsoft Product. I love my job because it surprises me and it surprises me daily. Till now I have tested two major search engines Google and Yahoo dealing with the request sent using POST method and both of them have given me different results. Once again I was guessing the result before testing. Based on my two previous results I was thinking that Bing should either display the error message or it should display the search result. I have not thought of any other result but surprisingly, Bing has given some unexpected result:

Instead of displaying search results or any error, it has opened Bing Search Engine.

I have tested for few other search plugins for different search engine but result are more of the same as these three. Now, question is which search engine has served the user’s request properly: Google, Yahoo or Bing. Think as a tester, Think as a developer and Think as an end user.

Post me your answers with the reason in Comments section, we can have a good discussion on it.

An interview with a Bug–Part II (The Return of TGB)

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:49:00 +0000

It is said that History repeats itself. It has been more than two years when I interviewed the TGB. If any of you have missed that interview by any chance they can read it here.

That was the last time when TGB was seen. After that interview the TGB got fix and we were sure that we would never see him again. But guess what – we all were wrong. The TGB has returned and this time he is more powerful. This time he is going to blow our minds who are involved in the project – the testers, developers, team leads, managers, business managers, client and everybody who is directly or indirectly involved with the project. It seems that we are in deep soup.

Luckily like last time, this was again me who found him but this time I was not happy. First, my job was on stake now and second, the way he was looking at me like making fun of me. But, once again I was ready with my questions and tape recorder for another interview which I never imagined two years back when I interviewed him first.

Me: Hi TGB, It’s good to see you happy and healthy. Welcome back.

TGB: Don’t lie to me. You don’t seem happy at all seeing me again and moreover I never went anywhere so why are you welcoming me?

I was staring at him. He was not changed at all. He still hates me like I hate him.

Me: How did you escape last time? We all thought you were dead.

TGB: In software, the bugs are never died. They just go to unconscious state and wake up again when they get the chance. You only believe in what you see. If you don’t find any of us then you make assumptions that we don’t exists and release the so called bug-free software.

Me: What… By any chance, are you studying Psychology?

TGB: Yes, Psychology of ABS Members

Me: Very bad joke. Anyway, I don’t make any assumptions about your existence.

TGB: That’s only why you always find me. I hate you, seriously.

Me: Even I don’t love you and now when you have been found once again, I hate you more. You have put my job on stake. They are going to kick me out from here.

TGB: No, They should not. You are forgetting something. It was not you who confirmed my death. It was other ABS member of your team so you can have narrow escape.

Me: You mean Retesting. Yes, you are correct. It was not me.

There was silence of few seconds. Both of us were thinking. I broke the silence finally.

Me: He is a good tester. I am wondering how he has missed you.

TGB: You tell me.

Me: How can I tell u?

TGB: Think. You must know.

Me: He didn’t retest at all.

TGB: No, Infect he has retested twice.

Me: Then he might not know how to find you.

TGB: Correct and Incorrect as well.

Me: means

TGB: He knew only one way to find me which you mentioned in your report.

Me: and there was other ways?

TGB: Yes. Nobody knew how to find me before you did last time. You have found me because you were not following their steps book.

Me: You mean test cases?

TGB: Oh!!! You call them test cases and what you call such ABS members who follow these test cases?

Me: Testers…. more precisely Scripted Testers.

TGB: Oh!!! We call them ABS Robots and we really love them.

Me: why?

TGB: Because they only see what they are supposed to see. So, most of time they are not able to find us hiding in different areas of software.

Me: Can you explain it bit more?

TGB: Look, these ABS Robots try to find out using the steps book. These steps books are written based on the requirement by the client which says what a system should do and what it shouldn’t. But designed system is too complex than the specified one. The requirement never explain the grey area which lies between and beyond the Do and Don’ts of the software and that’s the place where most of us live in colonies.

Me: Hmmm. So what do you think what we should do?

TGB: I suggest you to continue testing the same way. This will help us to grow. Let us also enjoy the life.

Me: I understand your view but this is not possible. For your information the things are getting changed now. Now we have robust training mechanism for testers. The new testers are going to Context driven testing schools where they learn the martial arts with bugs like you. Few of testers are also practising exploratory testing in our team. Mark my words TGB – This time you are not going to come back.

TGB: WTF!!! You will not let us live happily.

Me: That’ true. If you are happy then we can’t.

TGB: So, you mean my time is near?

Me: Yes, but this time it is going to be too costly for us.

TGB:

Me: Why you are laughing?

TGB: Dear friend, it is not going to be that easy. Now it is time to start rounds of long meetings, people will be blamed for missing me at earlier stage, you will be blamed for not ensuring earlier that I was dead and finally in the end, the one who missed me at retesting will be found responsible for this blunder and you know the rest

Me: Yes, you are right and it reminds me we have a team meeting in 10 minutes. I will come to see you once more before you are dead. Do you have any message for aspiring testers?

TGB: Yes, I request them to follow Steps Book testing so that we can live healthy and happy life. After all, Life is about living happy.

And from next time I am not going to give you any more free interviews.

Me: Bye TGB. See you soon.

TGB: Bye.

Disclaimer: The original interview is edited because of foul and abusive language :)

…and I am screwed

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:47:00 +0000

I already knew that I should not do this.

Still I did it.

Have I lost my mind?

No… It’s just that I love my profession. My only mistake was I could lower the intensity of the damage but I didn’t think about that, possibly I was completely lost in my task.

But last line I mentioned in my session report was “ …and I am screwed”.

You must be wondering what I am talking about.

Background:

Few days ago while testing an e-commerce application I had ordered some useless items of more than INR 13K using my credit card, payment made as guest user and items would be delivered on an address which doesn’t exist in the world.

I was on payment page of the application and I tried some fake Credit Card No. but they were not helping me with what I was testing. So I entered my Card No. without verification code or password. I was sure that it would ask me the verification code but guess what? Payment is accepted instantly and within a minute I received message from my bank that payment was approved. I was staring the screen like moron. It took me some time to come out in my senses.

You are definitely going to ask - Have I lost my mind?

Still my answer is No.

Why?

Because:

My step was bold but not stupid (although it may seem stupid to many readers). The only problem was I have considered large amount. I should consider the lesser amount so that the impact is less.
Now I know that I need to learn in detail how does payment processing works both from functional and security aspects.
I learned a lesson – Never make assumptions while testing. Test and find the facts.
I have found a very serious security from the end user’s perspective.

Truly speaking – I was upset because I had lost 13K in seconds and it was huge amount for me but I was not repenting on my deed. In life sometimes we need to think beyond monetary things and this incident was one of them.

Do you think this incident will stop me from doing testing like this? Think again - the defect I have found is really a good one. So I don’t think I have lost money. I have found a serious bug in payment gateway and I am happy about that.

There are few points I came to know after having discussion with Bank staff. You might found useful them:

The payment once approved from the bank on your card can not be blocked although you can use Charge Dispute form against it to get your payment back later.
For International transactions verification code is not mandatory. So, never share your credit card no. with anyone because once it is leaked, anybody can guess the Expiry Date on retrial basis and can use your card.
The payment can roll back if merchant doesn’t claim the amount in specified period or order is cancelled.

BTW, I got my money back later. I sent some mails here and there and order was cancelled.

Overall this incident was not bad at all. What’s your point of view on this incident? Please share your views with me via comments or mails.

Special Thanks to Lakshminarasimha Manjunatha Mohan for guiding me whenever needed.

Is something wrong here?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:41:00 +0000

Can you see the problem/s with the following error message?

Just Chit - Chat

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 20:44:00 +0000

Finally, I am writing this blog post. It has been a long time I have written something. For last few days I have been trying to write but I couldn't make it but as it is said Better Late Than Never so here I am. Before moving further let me inform you that this post is not about software testing but still you can find it useful and interesting.

For last six months I was not much active on the web. No chat, No blog post, No discussion – Everything was like stopped. This six months were least productive in my career. Although I have learned testing but a little, I have discussed testing but a little and the worst part is I have practiced testing but a little.

Officially, I am doing good (Its my Manager's view not mine) but personally I was missing the freedom in testing. I have realized that software testing is an art and art can't be crafted without freedom. If thoughts of a poet is bound, he can't write the poem. Similarly, a tester mind bounded by test cases can not test actually. Its better to leave it free. I was also trapped with them but now I have started to learn how to separate the official life and tester life. Now, I think I can handle both together.

Although last few months were not good but still I have learned few things which I would like to share with you:

Quantity matters in corporate life :)
It is very difficult to change the perception of others. Believe me, I have tried and I was miserably failed.
Team is good; individual is better and I am still looking for best :)
A person can do anything – it just needs strong determination. I have experienced it.
There are only two kinds of tester – Good and Bad. Rest categories falls under these two.

And yes, two most interesting quotes which I heard. You can laugh after reading them:

60% of testing is completed once you have written the test cases good enough.
Exploratory Testing is a luxurious kind of testing.

A Feature which have become Bouquet of Bugs

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 19:46:00 +0000

Recently, I was testing an online shopping site – just for fun, nothing official. There I saw a feature called as “Tell A Friend”. I found this feature useful in first glance. During shopping, if you see any product which you find usable for your friend and you think your friends might be interested, just forward info about the product in the mailbox of your friend. You just have to write name & email address of your friend. I think this is great idea to make new customers.

So, I thought to take my hands on this feature but I was highly disappointed when I used this feature. In hurry to introduce the new feature, the site managers kept a bouquet of bugs on the site. Let’s come with me to see the dissection of this feature with me.

Oh… I forgot to tell you the store name. It’s Zappos.com. First, some introduction with Zappos:

Zappos.com is an online shoe and clothing shop. Since its founding in 1999, Zappos has grown to be the largest online shoe store. Zappos did "almost nothing" in sales for 1999, but grossed over USD$800 million in merchandise sales in 2007 and grossed over $1 billion in 2009.

On Zappos.com I selected a product to see its description. The product seemed good to me and I was sure one of my friends would be interested in this product. I decided to forward the details of the product to my friend. So I clicked on “Tell A Friend” button available on the product page.

So I was on “Tell A Friend” Window.

After seeing this window I thought to play with this.

I clicked on Send button to see what would happen if values were not filled. On clicking send I saw two error messages. The error messages were:

· You didn’t specify an email to send to
· You need to supply an email

Displaying an error message is not a formality. They could phrase the error messages in much better way. Also they displayed the error messages in reverse order of the fields on the form. In the above screenshot you can see that the sender’s email address field appears before receiver’s email address. The error message should also display in the same order. This is not a rule but this is always expected.

From error messages it was clear that sender’s name is not mandatory here. Just one questions from all my readers – How many of you know email addresses of your all friends?

As a friend, I know all my friends by their name and not by their email addresses. So, I believe Sender’s name should be mandatory here.

After this I checked for the validations on the fields.

I filled numerals values in sender’s name, email and receiver’s email address fields.

Clicked on send button. The message had been sent.

As you can see there is no validation on sender’s name, email & receiver’s email address. The message had been sent. I didn’t know which poor devil was going to get this mail.

I have doubt that some professional developer has developed this window. It seems any school going kid has done the job. Even they are also aware of these validations.

Now let’s see the max length validation.

I used Perl Clip for generating the string of one million characters and pasted the string in each field.

No surprise, each field has accepted one million characters. Now I wanted to see what would happen if I click on Send button. So I did the job.

I had doubt that this message would ever go and guess what, I was right.

If they had put max length validation for each field, you have not to see this error. From here, I was sure that I was going to get many bugs in this feature.

This time I thought to select the checkbox to send a personalize message with the product details. So I clicked on check box. It displayed one more field along with Captcha verification.

I clicked on send button again without filling up any data in any field.

As you can see, It had given the same error messages. I was surprised why it didn’t show any error message for personalize message or Captcha. On looking down I saw that marked checkbox was unmarked. So you see on page refresh the data was lost.

Again, I filled up the complete form

and clicked Send button. See, what I got here.

Now, this was the biggest joke. The Captcha verification had been provided but application was unable to check the Captcha. Then, what it was doing here? Moreover, instead of fixing the error, the application was suggesting me to send the message without personalize message.

While sending the product details I wanted to tell my friend that why I have chosen this product for him but I couldn’t do that.

As application was unable to send a personalize message, it had also unmarked the checkbox itself, so I decided to send the product details without personalize message. I clicked on send button again.

What?????

It was still looking for Captcha.

To check behind the curtains I clicked on checkbox.

OMG!!!!

Text message was still there. Captcha also had been refreshed. It means I couldn’t send product details until I remove the personalize message and Captcha text.

One funny thing I noted here: When Captcha text was incorrect, it has given the right error message but when correct Captcha text was entered earlier it was unable to process.

I was unable to understand whether they are making my job easy or tough. I could send direct mail to my friend much faster rather than using this add-on.

Next, I opened the “Tell A Friend” in Mozilla tab as you can see in the following image.

I wanted to see on clicking Cancel button whether it would close the single tab or all tabs. So I clicked on Cancel button. I was expecting tab to be closed but nothing happened.

So, I filled the data in the field and click on Send button. The message was sent.

I clicked on Close button but as usual nothing happened.

Finally I decided to close the window myself and never tried to open it again. I was frightened with “Tell A Friend”.

Before finishing, I just have one request – Just try to reduce the tasks of a user instead of multiplying them. They have lots of things to do in life. Before releasing, please make it sure that application doesn’t have such kinds of stupid bugs.

I am an Impersonator

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:53:00 +0000

I am a tester for some time now. A tester plays different roles for his job so do I and believe me I am happy about that. It seems that I am living life of an Impersonator. Some of you might be thinking what is an Impersonator?

An impersonator is someone who imitates or copies the behavior or actions of another.

Now when you know what is impersonator, you must be thinking why I am so happy about it? Actually I don’t think that any other career than testing can give me opportunity to play such different roles and this is not an exaggeration. When an actor can proud on his different characters played in different movies then why can’t I.

Different roles which I play

I am an Advisor: An Advisor is normally a person with more and deeper knowledge in a specific area i.e. a specialist. As a tester I generally play the role of an advisor. I give them suggestions from my experience with different products during development, I suggest them how they can make software better. I suggest them during bug fixing. Even I suggest them how to display an error message. What if they don’t follow every time what I suggested, sometimes even they don’t consider it but they always know I am doing best to help them and they are always keen to know my thoughts. That is sufficient for me.

I am a Police Officer: A Police officer is generally charged with the apprehension of criminals and the prevention and detection of crime, and the maintenance of public order
In Beautiful Testing, Linda Wilkinson has said:

Are testers policemen? Not usually. They can’t “arrest” anyone for breaking a law, even if the world of software development could figure out what those laws should be, and most do not have the authority to keep something from moving to production, regardless of the generic goodness (or badness) of the software.

According to me, a tester also wears a cap of a policeman. As a policeman, I find the culprit who breaks the laws of an application and put it behind the bar. The culprit in this case is a bug. I find the bug and log it in the bug sheet.

I am a Detective: A detective is any licensed or unlicensed person who solves crimes, including historical crimes, or looks into records. My job allows me to play the role of a detective.
For being a good tester, it is important to have good detective skills. A good tester is not who finds an issue, a good tester finds the issue and the reason behind that issue and here I need my Detective Skills to find the reason behind any issue. Sometimes I fail to find the reason but I always try. It helps me to know the product better than anyone else.

I am a Lawyer: A lawyer is a person who is learned in law and licensed to practice the law. As a detective I found the evidences and found the culprit, as a policeman I have put the culprit behind the bars but what if the culprit is escaped due to poor advocacy. To win a case we need strong prosecution against the culprit otherwise the defense lawyer can make him free. Similarly, sometimes we need strong prosecution skills against a bug. I need to describe the impact of the bug to the developer. In Software Testing it is called as Bug Advocacy.

I am a Critic: A critic is a person who offers reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation, or observation. Like a critic, I analyze a product according to my knowledge and share my views with the stakeholders about the product. I don't bother about what they want to hear actually, I just give them an honest opinion.

I am an End User: An end-user as the person who uses a product. This is the most important role which I play. It is an end user who is going to use the product finally so it is important to understand an end user for the success of the product. I test any product with the perspective of an end user and discuss my views with the development team and other stack holders so that they can improve the product accordingly.

I am a Reporter: A reporter is a type of journalist who researches and presents information in certain types of mass media.
Any news is breaking news if it is most significant story of the moment. It could be a story that is simply of wide interest to viewers and has little impact. As a reporter, I report the entire bug with all the evidences as soon as I find them. Late reporting can cause benefit to other reporters. Once an issue is found, I immediately report it.

I am a Salesman: A Salesman represents a person or company on the selling end of the deal. A real Salesman is that who sells the product to a customer when he needed it least. Sometimes I need to sell the bugs. I have found the bug, I have reported about it, On the basis of my bug advocacy it is also proved that the bug is critical and must be fixed but still I need to make the developers to fix it in current release. In that case, I use my Salesman skill to convince them to fix the bug immediately. It’s like selling a bug.

I am a Tester: and in the last but above all I am a tester. I need to change my role according to the situations but it is only because of the need of my Job. My basic job is to test the product. It is versatility of my job which allows me to wear the different caps at different time.

Am I missing any role? I might be....do tell me....... :)

NCR Weekend Testing Chapter

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Fri, 28 May 2010 10:35:00 +0000

Weekend Testing doesn't need any introduction but for those who are not still aware of Weekend Testing, Let me give a synopsis about it.

About Weekend Testing
Formerly known as Bangalore Weekend Testers is started by four passionate Testers Ajay Balamurugadas, Parimala Shankariah, Sharath Byregowda and Manoj Nair and later well contributed by Santhosh Tuppad. They have synergy towards testing software and learning from it. Their vision is to improve the craft of Software Testing. Their burning passion and desire to contribute to software testing community gave birth to Bangalore Weekend Testers peer group.

There was an outstanding response not just from Bangalore, but others parts of India and some parts of the world. This got them idea to start peer groups in their other towns/cities/states/countries. This led to the concept of Chapters.

Mission of WT
A platform for software testers to collaborate, test various kinds of software, foster hope, gain peer recognition, and be of value to the community.

What happens in a typical Weekend Testing session?
Testers register for the coming weekend testing session at least a day in advance, by sending an email. A facilitator for the session provides a link to the product to be tested ( typically open source ), creates a group chat and a mission to achieve by the end of one hour testing session. The mission could vary from finding functional issues to exploring testability to writing automated tests to investigating bug reports and so on.
At the end of one hour ( or the decided session end time ) testers start sharing their experiences, bugs, learning, challenges, questions, and so on for about an hour. The facilitator then takes a day or two to prepare an experience report and publishes on Weekend Testing portal for the public to view it and also sends it to the open source developers or project owners for their perusal.
2 hours in total – that’s it. Every minute – worth it.

About NCR Chapter
I have been trying for last few months to start a testing group in Delhi-NCR. The idea was to know the other passionate testers in this part of country, to share the knowledge and ideas. I always thought it would be a great experience for all of us. Now, I am pleased to announce that we are going to start NCR Weekend Testing sessions with the support of Weekend Testing.

All the formalities have been completed. Now we are looking for 2 facilitators who will be trained by WT originator so that weekend sessions can run smoothly. Once the training is completed, we can start our NCR Chapters.

What do you need to become Facilitator?
Burning Passion for the Testing craft
About 6 hours time on weekends
Strong desire to contribute to the testing community

How to apply for Facilitator?
Those who are interested to become the facilitator can contact at ncrtesters@gmail.com with subject “NCRWT - Facilitator”.

How to apply for participate?
Those who are interested to participate in NCR Weekend Testing session can also contact at ncrtesters@gmail.com with subject “NCRWT - Participate”

Please choose one of the following actions.

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Thu, 06 May 2010 10:42:00 +0000

Recently, while unzipping a movie file with WinZip I found the following error message:

Did you find something weird?

The message requests to choose one of the actions from the list but they forgot to display the list of actions.

Any Comment......

Face/Off - A different solution

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Tue, 04 May 2010 11:13:00 +0000

Few Words:

After reading my previous posts I received mail/comments on two major issues:
1.Few of them suggested me to change my style of writing
- Actually I always loved reading the stories so it has also put impact on my style of writing but I am trying to change it. This post should publish long time back but I couldn’t publish it for few reasons so you will find same old style in this post.
2. Few of the readers complained that I always write hatred things about the management
- This is not true at all but still I tried to change the things here. I hope you like it.

The Story begins Here....

“The situation is out of control now. They fight like cats and dogs.”

“It is common in IT world. The developers and testers always argue over the issues in the project. Don't Panic.”

“No, we need to think about that. Both are good, infect they are very good in their job but their rivalry can cause damage to project.
Yesterday, they were yelling on each other. Dorian was saying that it is easy to find the errors in other's work. You testers don't do anything productive in the project, if you have guts then develop a piece of code.
Trevor was also not behind. He replied that if you hurt then why you not do the things rights. You proud on your cheesy code; even a student can write better code than yours.”

“So, what is your suggestion on the matter?”

“I don't know. I just want to end the grudge developing between the both.”

“Ok, I’ll do something.”

After TL has gone, The Project Manager started to think on the matter and has come with a plan.

Next day, he called Dorian and Trevor in his office.

“I have a small project for both of you. I need it well developed and well tested. All the norms and conventions should be followed during development and testing of the project.”

“Will only we be in project?”

“Yes, this is a sample project for the client. Once the sample is approved, we will get the main project. So, for such a small project I just need two people from the team. Your TL has forwarded your name as Best developer and Best Tester. So I want both of you in my project.”

“Ok Sir. We will do it. How many days we have?”

“Good but there is a twist. Dorian, you have to work as tester in the project and Trevor, you will develop this sample project. In short, you will interchange your role for this project.

What? But why sir? We can't do that. I don't know how to test? I don’t know any testing technique and I am sure Trevor also can't write a single line of code. How can we do that?”

“Trevor stares to Dorian but remains quite. Actually he also has the same thought in mind.”

“Great questions. I already knew that you will have these queries. Actually client wanted to know the capabilities of our team so I promised him that for the sample project our tester will develop the project and developer will test the project. It’s a bet and I don't like defeat. So, just do it.”

“But Sir?”

“You can go now. You have time of Six days. Work together, help each other, all problems will be resolved. And remember don't try to cheat. You can help each other but you can't work for each other.”
While returning from the Manager’s cabin, both are thinking the same.

“Hell!!!! How will I do that?”

Day 1

Both are sitting on their desk and thinking how to start? Trevor knew that if he wouldn’t build the application, he would be blamed for not completing the task and then Dorian may have narrow escape in that case.
But Dorian was also not relaxed. As Trevor is not regular coder, there would be many issues in his build. What if he couldn’t find all issues in the build? He would be blamed for issues in the sample project.

They decided to use the Google to learn the things. Whole day passed but they are not sure how will they do the task.

Day 2

Trevor started with requirements. He gone through the requirements thrice and then started to create HLDs. He was not sure he had designed them correctly.

On the other hand Dorian was still googling. He was not sure yet from where he should start. Things are not going right way. He had to do something.

At the end of the days while Dorian was thinking what to do, Trevor came to him and proposed help to Dorian. In return, he wants the same. First time, Dorian was happy to hear Trevor. They shook their hands and deal was locked.

Day 3

Dorian checked all the HLDs and LLDs and made the appropriate correction. He suggested Trevor to write the use cases.

Trevor suggested Dorian to go through the Requirements and list the questions and query from the specification. He told him to apply few Heuristics during testing such as 'Mary had a little lamb’; to solve a big problem let it divide into small ones, Rumble Strip etc. Once the list of question is prepared, Trevor told him to go to manager to get the answers of those questions.

When Dorian returned from Manager, Trevor was doing his lunch. He offered his 'Aloo Parantha' to Dorian. Although Dorian don't want to eat anything but he couldn't deny to Trevor. The moment they shared the bite, every hot feeling between them was evaporated.

After Lunch, Dorian informed the Trevor about the changes in requirements after discussion with Manager. Trevor updated his design documents accordingly.

After finishing the changes, they have a peer meeting to set the environment of development and testing. Dorian described him how to set the development environment and Trevor shared how to set the testing environments.

At the end of day, both have set the environment for Development and Testing.

Day 4

Trevor was busy in the development. Sometimes he struck with the uses of syntax and specific commands where Dorian helped him. It was a simple application, but Trevor didn't think so. According to him, it was one of the toughest tasks. He realized that it is never easy to develop the things and maintaining the quality with development is most challenging.

On the other hand, Dorian was writing the test cases and metrices. He never knew that testers have such a challenging job. On wearing the Hat of a tester he realized the responsibility attached with the profession. He was feeling ashamed on the perception he had for the testers.

In the evening they sat together for the peer meeting and discussed the challenges they faced. Each of them helped each other to overcome from the challenges.

Day 5

Trevor has assigned the application to Dorian for testing. Dorian was executing the test cases but unable to find the issues. He was not sure that Dorian didn't leave any issue in the application.

Again they had the peer meeting. Dorian told Trevor that he is unable to find the issues. According to him all the requirement is completed. Trevor suggested him to use the Exploratory approach to find the issues. He made him understand the exploratory approach of testing. He also shared Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet with Dorian.

Dorian again started his work and within two hours he found many issues in the application. He assigned the issues to Trevor. Trevor worked on the issues and resolved them.

Day 6

Most of the work has been completed. Dorian has retested the issues followed by regression test. In between Trevor made the changes in the code suggested by Dorian. The task is completed and it looks really well.

In the evening they went to the nearby bar to celebrate the completion of their challenge within the allotted time. Next Day, they have meeting with the Manager.

One-on-One with PM

Next Day both Trevor and Dorian were called by PM. He wanted to know the status of progress. After getting the project status, he sent back Dorian so that he could do one-on-one with Trevor.

PM: Trevor, you have done a great job? I would like to know how your experience was.
Trevor: Sir, It was not my first time when I developed a product. In my college days I developed few apps but at that time we never bothered about testing or quality.
When I chosen software testing as my career, I have mindset that most of the developers don’t try to develop a quality product but guess, I was wrong. In last few days I learned that developer always tries to give his best, its just human nature that he can’t see the issues in his own developed product as Mothers can never see the faults of her own children

PM: Great Thought!!! So, would you like to go in development?
Trevor: Developing a product is a great feeling but I am more passionate for testing. I would like to remain as a tester always.

PM: Great. That’s all I want to know. Thanks for your time. Can u send Dorian inside?
Trevor: Thanks Sir for great opportunity and teaching a valuable lesson to us.

Trevor leaves the room and sent to Dorian inside.

PM: So Dorian how was your experience as a tester?
Dorian: It was great Sir. Earlier, I always thought that testers do nothing valuable with the project. They just find the errors in the project and report them. I mean we can also do the same if we have sufficient time.
On wearing a tester’s hat I came to know how wrong I was. A developer can just build a product; it is a tester who really makes a quality product. Testing is not an easy task. The testers are brave and have guts to say the truth, no matter who is standing before them.

PM: Good to see your thinking has been changed. So, would like to wear a tester’s hat in forthcoming project.
Dorian: I would love to but I don’t think I can do the justice with the job of a tester. We need skilled testers in the projects. I have learned - A skilled tester can give you a quality product but at the same time a bad tester can horribly ruined a product. I think Trevor is the right person who can test.

PM: I am happy that you understood the value of a tester. This is going to help you in future.
Dorian: Yes Sir.

PM calls on intercom and call Trevor inside.

PM: If you have any issue with each other, you can say it now?
Dorian: No Sir
Trevor: I have one issue, He promised to get me a beer three days ago but still he didn’t get me a beer.
PM: :) Come over to my home in the evening. We will have a drink together.

Disclaimer:

The story written above is purely a work of fiction and imagination. It doesn't belong to anybody living or dead.

Google is also fallible - A reply

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:33:00 +0000

I would like to dedicate this post to Santhosh Tuppad. It was Santhosh's post and the comments on the post which gave me idea to write this post. The post is going to heart break some Google fans but I think now they should accept that Google is also fallible.

Mission: To display the stupid mistakes to Google devotees in Gmail Registration form.
Time: 0.5 Hrs

How should I change the language here?

Scenario: I am a common user and I don’t have internet access at home so I go to cyber café to use the internet services. On such a public computer, I opened the GMail and found the following screen:

I don’t know Hindi so I am unable to read the content on the screen. How could I change the language to English?

Perhaps, Google forgot to provide the Change Language dropdown here.

GMail Help – Most Stupid Mistake

Scenario: I am using the GMail in Hindi and clicked on ‘Can’t access your account?’ link (Written in Hindi Translation) and redirected to following page:

Somebody must tell Google that upper right side should be towards upper side of the page and not at bottom of the page.

Now I have doubt on Google’s direction sense. How could I believe on Google Earth now?

Where is the play captcha image?

I am wondering where the play captcha image for this captcha is.

Play Captcha image: The wheelchair icon with captcha, on clicking you'll be presented with an interesting voice version of the captcha. This is generally used by physically disabled people.

Where is the Refresh button with Captcha image?

Scenario: I am unable to understand the letters in the captcha image. What should I do here?

Should I submit the incorrect word and try again for the new captcha, there is not guarantee that letters in new captcha will be readable

Or Should I refresh the page which will cause the lost of information that I already filled up.

Sorry, we are unable to present username suggestions at this time.

See the screenshot below:

There could be various reasons for this message:
1. GMail server might be busy with any female server :D
2. Its lunch time. :D
3. GMail server may be using the loo :D

Actually, GMail server suggests username on the basis of First name and Last Name entered by user and username can be in English Language only. Here, I have entered Hindi letters and he couldn’t process the request so instead of displaying its inability to suggest username, it has given this error message.

Incorrect Hindi Writing

Neither I had time to search them all nor do I have any spellchecker for Hindi Language so I have mentioned only one mistake in the screenshot. There might be more mistakes in Hindi Spellings.

The word should be written as ऊपर and not उपर

Displaying Error message without wrong Input

When I clicked on Check availability button, it displayed me a captcha with a field to enter the characters in the captcha and an error message which says

“The characters you entered didn't match the word verification. Please try again.”

When I didn't enter any word then why they are saying that I have entered incorrect word. This message should appear if I enter the incorrect characters.

Relevant Information is not available on Time

I have filled up the password with the characters which are not allowed by GMail. It displayed me the following error after submitting the form:

The following characters are allowed in your password: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and common punctuation characters.

If password characters were not valid then why didn’t it displayed the error when I tabbed from the choose password field to next field i.e. re-enter password.

If it has displayed the error at right time I could save a lot of time.

I hope GMail server is not allergic to the user name which I have selected.

In the screenshot, see the distance between the field and error message. It seems that GMail server is allergic to the selected username and that’s why the error message going far away every time I click check availability button.

I am not sure but the reason might be: Whenever user clicks on ‘Check Availability’ button, it generates same error message. To avoid the duplication of error messages, the developer had hid the repeating error message.

The funny thing is when these kind of stupid mistakes are mentioned by any passionate tester who is doing it without any greed, few people got offended. According to them “No one will die and no two countries will go to war.” Believe me if we tester start to keep this point in mind, we don’t need UI / Look and feel testing then.

It took just 30 minutes to find the above issues and I am sure if any tester devotes his some time he can find more issues in Google products.

Trust the Google but with open eyes.

How popular websites irritate their clients?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:31:00 +0000

To make a product successful, promotion of the product is always needed. Good Promotion of a bad product can also make the product successful. But sometimes bad promotion strategy can also irritate the users which ultimately puts negative impact on success of the product.

Recently I was checking my mails on yahoo.com when a green box started to appear on the top of the page. It was about access the Yahoo! Toolbar from more than one location.

First, I don't have Yahoo! Toolbar on my system, so this message should not display to me.

Also, I don’t want to install the Toolbar but there was no way to do so. There were only two options:

• Either I add the toolbar with my Yahoo! ID

• Or Save it to the computer

When I clicked the cross on the upper corner, the box is closed but appeared again after few second. I tried many times but the green box opens every time. Remember, last time when I wanted to install yahoo messenger on my system, it always failed :) and now when I don’t want to add the Toolbar, they were forcing me to add it.

Anyway I clicked on the ‘Learn more’ given in the box to learn how to close this box. See what I found:

Interestingly I was using Firefox and it was suggesting me how to get rid off from this box on Internet Explorer. What the purpose of user manual if user can’t find appropriate help?

At last, I decided to logout from my yahoo account rather than trying to close that irritating green box.

Any Comments?

Bulls and Cows

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 10:56:00 +0000

There is an old proverb - Necessity is the mother of invention. When a scientist invents something there is always a need. The Need is the final motive of any invention.

What is Need?
Need is a condition or situation in which something is required. In short need is requirement.

But what if the need is wrongly interpreted, Is the invention possible in that case? Might be possible but it would not be right invention; it would not actually do what we needed.

Now we change the above proverb according to IT Industries.

Requirement is the mother of every product.

Now what if requirement is wrongly interpreted, is the product possible in that case? Might be possible but it would not be right product because it would not do actually what stakeholders needed.

To provide a quality product to client, it is very important to understand the needs of the client. The purpose of testing can't be fulfilled if tester doesn't understand the requirement properly.

Why the requirement is mis-interpreted?
There may be various reasons such as:
• The clients/ users actually don’t know themselves what they really want or what they need?
• When it is impossible to know who yours users will be and it is quite often if we don’t consider the narrowly defined situation such as an EHR application.
• In general Requirements are not detailed enough to understand the exact needs of the stakeholders.

How the situation can be avoided?
The best solution is questioning. Questioning can be used as a tool to understand the exact requirement of a client. More you ask questions, more you clear about the product.

To depict the power of questioning and how it helps to understand the requirements of a client, we can take example of a game called “Bulls and Cows”

What is Bulls & Cows? - In childhood, you might play this game. This is also known as Cows and Bulls or Pigs and Bulls or Bulls and Cleots. This is a code breaking game played between two players.

How the Game is played? - On a sheet of paper, one player writes a 4-digit secret number. The digits must be all different. Then, the second player tries to guess this number. If the matching digits are on their right positions, they are "bulls", if on different positions, they are "cows". Example:

Secret number: 9374
Opponent's try: 4873 and asks “Is this correct?”
Answer: 1 bull and 2 cows. (The bull is "7"; the cows are "3" and "4".)

On the basis of answer, the opponent tries again until he finds the secret number. By asking a single Question again and again, Opponents finds the correct number.

When a single question can help to find a number then imagine how many questions you can ask in a requirements document. Asking Questions is a skill and it comes with lots of practice and time. But if you know the skill of questioning, there is no way to mis-interpret the requirements.

My Suggestion: If you find problems to understand the requirements then you should practice “Bulls & Cows”. If there is nobody to play with you, don't panic we have an open source version of “Bulls” and “Cows” called 4 digits.
The game's objective is to guess a four-digit number in 8 times using as less time as possible.

A Heuristic and A Puzzle

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:28:00 +0000

A Heuristic is a “rule of thumb", an educated guess, an intuitive judgment or simply common sense. A heuristic is a general way of solving a problem.
- Wikipedia

There are few heuristics which I generally use while doing testing. One of them is “To solve a big problem let it divide it into smaller ones”. I learned this heuristic in one of the workshop by Pradeep Sir.

Recently when I visited the Blog of James Sir, I found a puzzle challenge. The Puzzle was:

Find the missing 13th number in this sequence:
77, 341, 923, 1547, 608, 2116, 377, 2263, 518, 1394, 3182, 1645, _____, 944, 4636 …”

I always love to play with numbers and so I thought to find the 13th number in the series.

My approach: I noted down the series in WordPad and started to apply different arithmetic operators. Nothing found. I left the exercise (Hopeless!!!!)
Next day I have started again from scratch. As I already played with them so I knew simple arithmetic operation would not help me. Then what should I do? How to find the missing number?
I was just gazing the numbers like an idiot and expecting them to tell me what the pattern hiding in the series is. At this moment, suddenly an idea came to my mind: Apply the heuristic which I learnt in the workshop.

To solve a big problem let it divide it into smaller ones

I was not sure that it will solve the problem, but there might be some logic which could help me to solve the problem. So I started to use the heuristic and I hit the Bull's Eye. After applying the heuristic, I not only got the answer but also found the two patterns in the series. The pattern in the series was awesome which is difficult to find by simply applying the arithmetic operations or any formula.
I am not solving the puzzle here so that you can find the solution of the problem with your own and share your approach of solving the problem here.

P.S.: I am posting the solution in comments section for those who want the solution of the puzzle but I wish you to try yourself before looking the solution.

What is your sentence?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:18:00 +0000

Scene -1

Sir, there is an issue here.

What issue?

We are populating the date and time by default; but the date and time is already scheduled for another appointment. What’s the use of populating the data if user needs to change the data?

So what do you want? We are displaying the current date and time here. Client has gone through the module and he didn’t complaint about it, then what’s the problem?

Earlier we don’t have the functionality to display the next available schedule. Now when we have the function, we can implement the function here. It will increase the usability.

Hmmm…. Ok, we will see later.

Scene -2

Hey Jags, There is an issue?

What issue?

Look at this buddy. In the month view of the appointment scheduler, you are displaying the appointments for each day. User is able to create the appointment by clicking on a day. But when user clicks on the days of next month in the current month view, the appointment form doesn’t open although you are displaying the appointments for that day.

It’s not possible. To create the appointment for next month you have to go to the next month view.

But if you are displaying the appointments of next month here then user wishes to create the appointment from here too.

It’s not possible.

But the same functionality is already implemented in Google calendar then why it’s not possible.

Client didn’t complaint about this issue. We will do it when client will ask.

If it is not possible then how will you do it then?

Everything is possible what client wants. We have other tasks too so we can’t do it just for your satisfaction.

You are not developing the things to satisfy me. We all here are working for client satisfaction.

Tester went to his Project Manager. He detailed the issue to PM.

Hmmm…. Ok, we will see later.

Scene -3

Sir, the module is still under test. There are few issues which need to be fixed before uploading the client site.

Is there any show stopper?

No Show stopper is there but there are many minor issues which can not be ignored.

Hmmm…. Ok, Let us upload the module today as we promised him. You carry on your test, find the bugs and assign them. After bug fixing we will upload the changes.

Next day, Client logged the issues.

Scene -4

Why did you disclose the issues to client when he was unaware?

He wants to know the issues in the module.

He was not aware of those issues. You could hide them easily. We could fix them afterwards.

Later if he finds the issues, he can conclude that I am not a good tester for his project.

We would handle the situation in that case. Now he is demanding for the major changes in the module which can cause late delivery and hence deduction in billing. You are on responsible designation. I was not expecting this from you. Well, never repeat the same.

Scene -5

Hey Jags, This is not right. Client wants to do the things in this fashion. What you are doing is incorrect. Do it in this way

Hey man, we are the developers, not God. Why you don't accept the simple things.

It is not simple. It is buggy. Client is asking for a dinner chair and you are giving him Potty Chair. Do as I said, it is the right approach.

Hmmmm....

After three days:

Congrats Jags, Client has really liked the module. Well Done boy. I was not sure that he would like the module. Good Job.

What does your Manager say:

On Scene -1

I am agree that it increase the usability but as I said Client didn't ask for implement the changes here. There is lot of work in the project, we can't spend time for the things for which client doesn't care. So I put the things on hold.

On Scene -2

This is a valid issue but if client didn't make a complaint it means he is satisfied with the current feature. In the limited time line we can't provide everything to client. We have put the issue in our To-Do list and if we can get enough time, we will surely fix the issue.

On Scene -3

Bad things are better than nothing. I have promised to client that I would deliver the module on particular date. Postponing the delivery can cause the bad credibility. So I decided to upload the module.

On Scene -4

Due to your stupidity, Client has known the issue which we could deal later. He gives us a long list of changes which has put us back from the schedule. The client will deduct the payment if project is not delivered on scheduled date and you'll be the only one responsible for the situation.

On Scene -5

I never knew that you also contributed so much in the module. I thought it was Jags who developed the module alone. I really appreciate your efforts but you must also agree that Developers are the real contributor in a project; if they are not there no project could take a shape. Your work depends only on their work.

What is your sentence?

Now as a tester what is your response? Are you agree with the Project Manager or you have different sentence. Share your point of view as Comments.

Test Report: Tasks

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:24:00 +0000

Introduction:

Tasks is a simple To Do manager, using GTK+ and libecal. It eschews complicated features for a simple interface and functionality that does the right thing.

This application is provided by the Ubuntu community.

Objective: To explore the application, review it, list the features and find the issues in the application.

Assign Time: 1 Hr.

Environment: Ubuntu 8.04

This week I tested a small application called 'Tasks'. I start my testing with exploring the application to become familiar with it. The intention was to find the capabilities of the product.

Features:

Simple and Easy Interface make it very user friendly. Very easy to use.
Light Weighted Product, Very low CPU usage

Auto Synchronization if multiple instances are opened
User can distribute the tasks in different categories. A category name can hold up to 65534 characters.
Long Task Name is allowed. A Task Name can hold up to 65534 characters.
The Task can be associated with web address/es if required.
Tasks are listed in chronological order of Priority – High Priority task displays on top followed by normal and low priority task.

My Findings:

User is able to uninstall the application without closing it which causes user to use the application after un-installation without any error. Here I assumed un-installation doesn't remove the database from the system. Again installing the application recovers all the task listed before un-installation. It strongen my assumption.
Allowing the long name for tasks/categories causes the problem sometimes as it expand the dialog boxes and windows out of screen area.

Notes Text box is free length text area. Limited input don't cause any harm but if user enters more and more data, the application starts to display strange behavior like all characters disappears, overwriting of characters and finally application crash.

No notification to separate the task on the basis of priority. All tasks looks same. Different color or image notification for each priority can increase the usability.
The product is stand alone program. A user can use it for personal purpose only. In that case creating tasks for previous date doesn't make any sense to me.

My Review:

Tasks is a very simple and easy to use. The application is very much stable and can be used by anyone in daily life without any problem.

My Doubt:

Why the max length of the field is set to 65534 and not 65536? Can anyone clear my doubt, please?

I know I was right.....

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 10:47:00 +0000

2 days ago:
The phone was ringing continuously. Nobody was ready to pick up the phone. Everybody was enjoying the party thrown on the occasion of successful delivery of the product. It had been more than one week since the product was delivered. We were just waiting for the client's confirmation about the product, yesterday he gave the confirmation that he was satisfied with the product. After confirmation the management thought to celebrate the success and thrown a party on the workplace. The beer is flowing like water in the river. Everybody was dancing on remix version of song being played on one of the system:

I am a champion, a blue ribbon, gold medal kid.
I am a champion, a blue ribbon, gold medal kid.
I am a champion, I know in my heart.
I am a champion, I've known it from the start.
You are a champion, a blue ribbon, gold medal kid.
You are a champion, a blue ribbon, gold medal kid.
You are a champion, you know in your heart.
You are a champion, you've known it from the start.
We are all champions, we're a blue ribbon, gold medal team.
We are all champions, we're a blue ribbon, gold medal team.
We are all champions, we know in our hearts.
We are all champions, we've known it from the start.
Champion, champion.... I'm a champion.
Champion, champion.... you're a champion.
Champion, champion.... we're all champions!!

In such a toxic ambiance nobody bothered to pickup the phone. When the ringing was not stopped,The ProjectManager picked up the phone. During conversation, his colors of face has started to change. Something was very serious.

437 days ago:
Today I had interview with "XYZSquare Solutions Pvt. Ltd." for the position of Test Engineer. It was a great opportunity for me as I was looking for a change since last 3 months and this company also has big name than previous one. Anyway, the interview was great and they offered me 70% hike from my current package. I immediately accepted the offer.

385 days ago:
Today a new project was assigned to me. There were 15 members in the team - 1 Project Manager, 1 Delivery Manager, 1 Technical Consultant, 1 Team Leader, 10 Developers and 1 Tester (i.e. me). This was one of the critical product with very tight scheduling. The work has started with pace and lot of enthusiasm. Everybody was trying to put all his efforts.

129 days ago:
I was sitting in the cabin of Project Manager watching the kites in the sky outside from the window. My Manager was busy in reading the report submitted by me. After going through the report he asked me the motive of coming ( Indirectly, he was asking about the urgency for which I had awaken him from his nap). I described him the situation, 312 issues were already open and I was still counting but nobody was bothered to fix them as everybody was busy with some development activity. There were some critical issues. He assured me that once the development is completed, all the issues would be fixed. I was not able to understand his strategy because bug fixing at later stage would definitely cost more but I needed to agree with him.

20 days ago:
The delivery manager called me and asked about the status. Just 10 days were remaining in the delivery and it was first time when Delivery Manager asked about the product. I was wondering "Had he been sleeping for one year?". Anyway, i told him that there were few issues which must be fixed before delivery.

10 days ago:
The delivery manager came to me and asked about the status. He was looking worried. I told him that still 2 high severity bugs were there and must be fixed before delivering the product. He gazed at me for few moments and asked me about the issues. I gave him a brief summary and told him the impact of those two bugs. After lot of consideration and calculation (?) he declared that these issues could be deal in next release as the scenario was very rare in real world and the probability of client meeting with this issue was 1/10000.

According to him the product was ready to deliver. He also deleted the bugs from the "Known Issues" list to show the delivery of bug free product.

9 days ago:
Today the team were very happy. Its a big day after all. All their efforts which they put in the product were going to live today. Everybody was planning about their holidays. Everybody was expecting some reward from the management. I was also happy but a doubt was there in my mind - What if the client finds the issue in 1st attempt instead of 10000th attempt? At 9 P.M. all the files has been uploaded on the client site. It has taken complete 3 hours to upload.

Now the ball was in the client court. The delivery manager told us that for a week the client is going to perform acceptance testing on the product and then if he gives us clean chit then there would be a party from the management.

Yesterday:
I was sitting in front of COO of the company. The delivery manager and my project manager were also there. The COO was angry with us (specially me) because the client has called him in the midnight and shouted on him madly. The client was really angry because one of his client has refused to accept the product due to some error and client has declared not to pay the remaining balance. It was one of the issues which I want to be fixed before delivering the product.

The COO wanted to know why the issue was not found during the testing. I tried to tell him that Issue was found and I also put the issue in front of delivery manager but he allowed the delivery of the product without fixing of the issue.

He asked me if issue was found then why it was not there in the list of 'known issues'. I told him the truth again. But, according to him it was a lame excuse. If the issue was very serious then I should make it fixed before delivery, as it was totally my responsibility. I opposed him as the quality is the responsibility of everybody in the project. He was blaming me for the mistake made by the delivery manager. It was he who deferred the bug. While having these words with COO, my Project Manager was signaling me to shut my mouth but I was on high drive. Perhaps the effect of beer was still there or it was the pride of a tester, whatever, hearing this the COO was pissed of me. He found me very arrogant and decided that no reward bonus or salary hike will be granted to me.

Today:
I have resigned from the company today and now I am jobless. There is no repentance on the decision which I have made because I know I was right.

Epilogue

After 3 years:
Now a days I am working as Testing Consultant and testing a project for the "XYZSquare Solutions Pvt. Ltd." and charging them double the amount of what I charge from others :)

***************************

Credentials:

The Song "Champions" is written by Debbie Clement. Debbie Clement is an Arts Enrichment Specialist serving young children and their families, often children with special needs. Her twenty years of experience demonstrate her passion for teaching and her love of children. An educator as well as a singer-songwriter, in 1998 Debbie was awarded the Ella Lyman Cabot Trust award for preschool music serving children with special needs.

Sources:

http://www.songsforteaching.com/debbieclement/champions.htm
http://www.songsforteaching.com/store/debbie-clement-c-631.html
***************************

Disclaimer:

The story written above is purely a work of fiction and imagination. It doesn't belong to anybody living or dead.

WT28 - Session Report

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:50:00 +0000

I am a big fan of weekend testing sessions. They give us sufficient feed for our brains to think. The WT community helps the testers to share/gain their knowledge. Testing an application in limited time followed by discussion with other testers really help to boost the confidence of a tester.

Although I am not a regular weekend tester but whenever I get a chance I don't skip the session.

This weekend I was able to attend the session and what a session it was. You can see here how different minds interprets the same thing differently.

Mission: There are three tasks to be completed today.
Time Duration: 1 hour.

Task 1:
Complete the game- http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/game/dragger/
Objective: Send the screenshot where the picture is built right.

Task 2:
Score 90 points in the game:
http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/game/memocoly/
Objective: Send the screenshot.
Checkpoints: URL of the game, IQ Score, "Your solution is right, congratulations! (+10 points)"

Task 3:
Score 50 points in the game:
http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/game/numberhunt/
Objective: Send the screenshot.
Checkpoints: URL of the game, IQ Score, "Your answer xx is right, congratulations! (+10 points) "

My Approach: I have gone through the requirement three times before starting the task. It is must to understand the task very well before starting. Once I understood the task, I started to work on them.

Task 1: It was a jigsaw puzzle. We had to complete an image from the pieces. Although I am not very good in solving the jigsaw puzzle but somehow the task is completed with in a short time.

Once the picture is completed, I took the screenshot as mentioned in the mission.

Task 2: It was a memory game. In this game, we had to memorize the colors and press them in order they appeared. It took me some time to understand the game. We have to score 90 points in the game. Till 40, I did not found any problem but after 40 pts. it was difficult to remember the sequence of color. I tried many times but no success. I thought to use pencil or paper to note down the sequence but I drop the idea as I think it would kill the purpose of game and mission assigned to us.

At this stage I was not sure how much time this task will take to complete, it might possible that I wouldn't be able to complete the task so I moved to task 3 to complete it first.

After completing the task 3, i concentrated on task 2 again and I was able to complete the task with sufficient time remaining in my hands.

Task 3: It was a cake walk for me. This task is about adding the moving numbers. From childhood I used to play with numbers. It was years of practice so I have completed the task in less than 40 seconds.

Although I have completed the mission within 40 minutes but major of my time was spent on memory game.It might means that I don't have good memory, I need to work on improving my memory.

Discussion: As soon as the time is finished, all the tester has stopped to work, although some of the testers were not able to complete the task. It really shows that how honest we testers are ;)

OK, so discussion was the real entertainment. While some testers completed the task by using tools like tamper add-on for mozilla (for jigsaw puzzle), pencil, paper etc (for memocoly game) and they are justifying their point of view with that it was not mentioned in mission that testers are not allowed to use the tools, My point of view was that these tasks were assigned to improve our learning skills. If we are using pencil-paper to note down the sequence of color then how it is helping us to improve the skills. A mission to complete the game has become the debating issue :) we share our views, learn from other testers across the world and then wind up the session.

Learnings:

Have a doubt, ask questions. Ask as many as you can. This will help to clear the traps.
Came to know about the tamper data add-on for mozilla firefox. The tamper data can be used to view and modify HTTP/HTTPS headers and post parameters.
I need to do more practice to improvise my memory skills.

Test Report: KArm

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:32:00 +0000

I have been doing the testing since more than two years but I never got a chance to test and desktop application. So I thought to try my hands with desktop applications also. As this is my first chance with testing of desktop application so I would like your suggestions and comments. Your comments will surely help me to improvise.

Here, I would like to share that I usually works on Windows OS and know very little about the Ubuntu which caused me to face few hurdles during testing of the KArm. So, for the time I have limited myself to functionality testing only until I learn the Ubuntu properly.

Now, lets start the testing...

Product Info:

Name: KArm
Version: 1.6.0
Description: KArm is a time tracker for busy people who need to keep track of the amount of time they spend on various tasks.

This package is part of KDE, and a component of the KDE PIM module.
Environment: Ubuntu 8.04

Mission: To test the functionality of the KArm and find the issues in the application.

Date: 27-Feb-2010
Start Time: 11:30 AM
End Time: 01:00 PM

I started my testing with exploring the product so that I could become familiar with the features and functionality of the application. After spending little time with the product, I gain confidence about the product.

After spending 1.5 hrs with the product I found the following issues in the product.

Issues:

User can create a subtask for a super task. If no super task is there in the tracker, the Sub Task button should remain disabled
The default 'Detect Desktop as idle' time is set to 15 minutes but user is notify just after 1 minute.
Unable to launch KArm Handbook
There is a feature in Help menu called 'What's This?' On clicking this menu item, the cursor is converted in to a question mark (?). When user click this question mark on any button in the standard menu bar or column header, it display the details of that screen element. The feature doesn't display detail for 'Sub Task' button
User should not be allowed to open the multiple instance of the product.As each instance displays the same task list so there is no use of opening multiple instance.
Opening the multiple instances also caused the KArm to display different timings of same task.
If multiple instances of the product is opened, it displays the error of shortage of disk space although there is sufficient disk space.

While adding/editing a task, the user can enter absolute/relative hours. Here the hours field can accept number up to 9 digits. If user inserts a long digit, it cause the error in time calculation.
Clock should display whenever it is started by user but the clock displays only if Session Time column is configured to display and user has started the clock.
Product crashed twice during the testing although I couldn't find out the reason due to lack of time but I hope to find it soon.

Learnings:

Overall it was a good experience to test an application for self confidence and improvisation. Today, I came to know that I lacks in test ideas while testing desktop products. Moreover, I need to learn the Ubuntu to do well with my testing. If a tester is not able to use the environment properly, he could not perform the satisfactory testing of the product.

Emotional Bug

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:51:00 +0000

How do you feel when someone laughs on you while you are installing an application and unsuccessful every time?

You will get irritated by this, right.

Either developers at yahoo don’t think so or they have missed an emotional bug. You might be surprising with the term Emotional bug. Actually I have coined the term Emotional bug.

The bugs which can hurt the feelings of a user can be called as Emotional Bug.

Let me display you an example which I found. I was trying to install the yahoo messenger but due to some technical issues, I was unable to install it successfully. On completing the installation process, I got the following message.

Did you notice the image of emoticon on the message box? It’s a smiling emoticon for unsuccessful installation. It seems they are happy about the unsuccessful installation.

This might not be an issue for many of you. Most of you may think this is just an image but “Images are more expressive than words.” What say?

Lessons Learned from Pradeep Soundararajan

noreply@blogger.com (Mohit) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:06:00 +0000

Chapter 2 - Kids can do Boundary Value Analysis!!

My niece is 5 years old. She doesn't know what is software testing, in fact she doesn't know what is software but still she can do Boundary Value Analysis. Amazing na.... although I have never asked her to do so but still I am sure that she can do it.

Surely, you will be surprised how I am so sure? Actually, she can add the numbers, subtract the numbers and that is exactly what most of us do on the name of Boundary Value Analysis.

I was also following the same approach until Pradeep Sir has not mentioned it in one of his workshop. The question is - Are we really doing analysis?

The Wikipedia says:
Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it.

As definition says Analysis is just not adding or subtracting 1. It seems that we have changed the definition of analysis. If what we are doing is analysis then perhaps the software testers at NASA are doing the same :) They are just adding and subtracting the numbers. If that so, any body who can do addition and subtraction can join panel of Software Testers in NASA.

Boundary value analysis is a software testing design technique in which tests are designed to include representatives of boundary values. Values on the edge of an equivalence partition or at the smallest value on either side of an edge. The values could be either input or output ranges of a software component.

The definition doesn't mention +1/-1 approach. It also doesn't tell us that BVA can be be applied on input fields only which we generally do.

It is said that most of the bugs reside on the boundaries. Don't know who made this statement. Might be a tester has made the statement when he found most of the bugs at the boundaries when he was testing an application.

But is he right?

Might be he is right but did he really applied the +1/-1 approach. I don't think so. Check out the total bugs logged by you and then see how many bugs you have found by +1/-1 approach. I am sure the percentage would be very low.

Perhaps we are misunderstanding the concept of Boundary Value Analysis or Might be we need to rename the +1/-1 approach. How about calling it “Kids Approach”.

Think about it tell then let me try to find out what is Boundary Value Analysis?