Category: Heuristic testing
Do you know what happens when the power goes off?
August 16, 2010
This news article where a hairdresser’s client went bald after a power loss in the salon reminded me of a test I frequently forget to run. Power off your system or server while in the middle of testing and look for problems. You’ll most frequently find issues if you aim for a power outage – […]
Something to try if Squirrel SQL stops working on Windows
August 12, 2009
I’ve been using the free Squirrel SQL SQL client under windows for a month or so now. It’s a good tool, though somewhat annoying to get working. Today it stopped working.  The loading splash screen would display, the progress bar would get about halfway through and then Squirrel would exit without any messages. I had no desire […]
Thinking about Test Strategy – A mnemonic device
July 21, 2009
I’ve recently been on the move a little, and have had a lot of chances to work on test strategy. I generally have historical documents to work from, but decided I should try to come up with a mnemonic device to ensure that I have all of the critical conversations that I need. One of […]
Test for Project Risk
August 19, 2008
An excellent quote from our development lead, James Ladd: How to test a project might be risky – – It has people in it. Thanks to James Bach for inspring this!
Rapid testing, risk catalogues and checklists – Windows testing ideas
January 17, 2008
Many moons ago, when I was a young tester, I worked on the first third party game for Microsoft (Please don’t look for it, it’s terrible). But there was some good to come out of the experience. Windows ’95 was new shiny, and fraught with danger. To help address some of this, I began collecting […]
Attention, attention…
September 10, 2007
The concept of inattentional blindness has been, if you’ll excuse the unintended pun, brought to the testing world’s attention lately by Cem Kaner and James Bach. Sajjadul Hakim has written recently on an exploratory testing experience in which he attributed failure to observe a bug to inattentional blindness. While this may have been the cause, […]
Study session difficulties, or the Learning Organisation challenge
January 17, 2007
In the Yahoo group supporting Cem Kaner’s Black Box Software Testing course, Anil Soni has been describing experiences organising and leading internal training, using the BBST course materials. One point in particular caught my attention: > The major challenge is to have all the testers together in the same time > needed for the group […]
Today's testing heuristic – SEP
September 15, 2006
Having seen a number of testers posting their heuristics on Testing reflections, I thought I might chime in with one that popped into my head. I’m calling it the SEP heuristic, which is probably all you need to know about it if you are familiar with Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide books. It is simply this […]