A Must-Read Q&A With Google's James Whittaker (June 2010)

Exploratory Testing: The Good, The Bad, The Bugs

What does James Whittaker - noted author and Test Director for Google - think about the future of cloud-based test automation? What are his thoughts on the on-going Google-Microsoft rivalry? What's going on in the Google labs right now? What are his views on exploratory testing? What's his favorite Kevin Bacon movie? Answers to these all-important questions can be found in our latest Testing the Limits interview. As our first repeat guest (though certainly not our last), James tackles some of the most pressing issues faced by today's software professionals - making this a must-read for testers, developers, managers and executives. Here are a few clips: On Exploratory Testing: "Bad exploratory testers spend little time preparing and are only seeking bugs as their primary outcome. Good exploratory testers apply structure to their work and use tools to collect data so that their testing sessions are more meaningful than just bug finding exercises. Exploratory testing should be connected to the rest of the testing process and not just a late cycle bug finding activity." On Cloud-Based Test Automation: "What we are working toward is a browser that is capable of testing applications that run inside it. The idea is to build the test framework into the browser, in our case Chrome, so that test artifacts don’t have to be moved around and installed in test labs and on test machines. Also, since the browser and automation are one, problems such as Ajax and self-updating web pages won’t confuse automation. This is true cloud-based test automation." Read Part I and Part II of the interviews in their entirety. You won't be disappointed.

Free Whitepaper - Crowdsourced Usability Testing

Not long ago, usability studies cost tens of thousands of dollars and took months to complete. Not surprisingly, this was a commitment few software companies were able to make. Today, thanks to developments in crowdsourcing, an informative round of usability testing can be completed in weeks - by companies of all sizes - for a fraction of the traditional costs. This whitepaper will explain how it's being done. Written by UX expert Inge De Bleecker, this FREE whitepaper, contains the latest tips on usability testing, including:

  1. Know Thy User: How to prevent technical or inappropriate labels and terminology from making it into your application.
  2. How Much Is Too Much: Usability testing doesn't require hundred's of participants, or does it? Learn more about choosing the right size focus group.
  3. Mobile Matters: Why usability testing must now include a significant mobile component.
  4. Turning Data Into Decisions: How to quickly target 'pain points' to improve usability and profitability.

Download Crowdsourced Usability Testing for more tips on launching an intuitive application.

Quality Quotes

“Software is usually accompanied by documentation in the form of big fat scary manuals that nobody ever reads. In fact, for the past five years most of the manuals shipped with software products have actually been copies of Stephen King's The Stand with new covers pasted on.” - Dave Barry “Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the second law of thermodynamics; i.e. it always increases.” - Norman R. Augustine “Software is the soul to the lifeless body of the hardware.” - Anonymous (Thanks to thinkexist.com for the material.)

Android vs. iPhone Performance

As the smartphone battle heats up, a debate has begun around a seemingly crucial question: which platform is faster? In a lot of ways, that’s impossible to answer. Performance comparisons depend on many factors, including the trade-off between performance and battery life. But that hasn’t stopped some from having the debate anyway, and the battle lines right now are over Android’s JVM vs. the iPhone’s Objective C objc_msgSend. Let me explain. Continue reading on mobileapptesting.com.

Q2 Bug Battle: Foursquare vs. Gowalla vs. Brightkite

If you’ve visited any tech news sites in the past year, you may have noticed that location-based services are the hottest frontier in 2010. And if that newsflash isn’t exactly news to you, then you may have wondered which check-in service is tops. Well, we did too. So we decided to put the top three players (Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite) to the test. And thus was born our 2nd quarter Bug Battle. Here are some of the noteworthy results:

  • Foursquare had the least reported bugs (177), followed by Gowalla (316) and Brightkite (377).
  • Foursquare was ranked #1 in ease-of-use, social media integration and connectivity with friends, while Gowalla took top honors in the important category of location accuracy.
  • Very importantly, 80% of participants said they are concerned about how check-in services could impact their privacy/safety.
  • 49% of all respondents chose “privacy & security concerns” as the top reason they do not use check-in services more.

Continue reading to see what Mashable, Techcrunch, VentureBeat and others had to say about our latest bug-hunting competition.

Bug of the Month

Hacking the Hackers: Security experts have found that many of the kits used by cyber criminals are riddled with bugs and vulnerabilities. Exploiting the bugs might mean that the attack tools can be turned against those using them. The bugs found by the researchers could be used to identify who is using the tools and even launch a counter-attack. (From the BBC online)