MashON

Combining state-of-the-art technology with on-demand manufacturing, MashON provides the eCommerce industry with a truly unique product customization platform. Based in Los Angeles, this promising startup has been helping stores of all sizes extend their offerings, reduce inventory risk and improve their margins since late 2005.

As MashON was readying itself for the launch of the latest generation of its Customization platform, the company recognized a need to enhance it software testing methods and procedures.

“Given our application is primarily aimed at consumer usage, we identified the need to dramatically expand our testing," said Philippe Benoliel, CEO of MashON. “uTest made perfect sense for us, since we couldn’t possibly stack up enough of these machines and environments on our own.”

This case study will show how uTest helped MashON achieve complete usability testing with real-world members of its global community of software testers. Additional topics will include the extent of testing coverage, the role of project management and other aspects of the uTest experience.

MashON: Testing Goals and Objectives

Philippe explained that while the MashON platform is cutting edge, they still needed to verify the application’s functionality and usability in older environments (think IE6 on dial-up). For this reason, the status quo of testing was not an option they could afford.

“For this type of testing, automation was not going to benefit us,” explained Philippe. “We needed real feedback from actual testers, and uTest helped us achieve this without any constraints in terms of cost and time.”

Working with his uTest project manager (there’s one assigned to every customer account) the MashON QA lead would assemble a testing team diverse in terms of geography, experience, hardware, software and other categories.

“The variety of users we got would have been impossible without uTest,” said Philippe. “We had lots of different eyes, different cultures taking a close look at our product. It was certainly a valuable experience for us.”

After the initial setup, MashON's new virtual QA team would spend the next 5 days reviewing the application. Like many uTest projects, testers were not given any explicit instructions, as they had been asked to search the app in an exploratory fashion. At the conclusion of the test cycle, each tester was requested to complete a brief survey, where they would offer their feedback and suggestions for improvement.