My favorite month is October, a month jam-packed with festivals and rains. Aroma from sweets, flower’s fragrance, and essence from new dresses and of course holidays; like this I can quote many more reasons to justify my likeliness towards last month. In many IT companies, mid-year appraisal is conducted on October, to track how employee has performed on par with goals/tasks assigned to them. Each company follow different strategy to rate testers, but I wish “Error Guessing” should also be tagged as a trait to benchmark testers.
Ever heard about Error Guessing? No? Then please read on. Given an application to test, based upon previous experience and testing knowledge; a tester can figure out areas which are likely to be error prone. Remember this is not confined to manual testing; it is applicable for all types of software testing that exist on earth. Do you call yourself “Testing Expert”? Then better ensure you have boundless error guessing capabilities
N+ ways are there to improvise “Error guessing” ability, but these are few which I do on every day. Here are they…
Test as many applications as possible –Have you ever observed pattern in bugs, among products having similar anatomy? Well, it’s because of underlying technologies, usage scenarios and common coder’s mistakes. The more applications we test, more we learn about bug patterns. So next time when you encounter similar application to test, you can easily correlate & spot areas which are error prone.
Reading other’s bug report – Everyday I read bug reports logged by my colleagues. It not only improves my knowledge about product but also to understand different flows, tools, techniques to unveil a valid defect. Infact after lunch, this is my first assignment. Trust me this would be a stress-free yet significant duty to resume your routine.
Consider History – Search for defects from related products or search by developers in your defect management tool, to get hold of zones to concentrate upon. Ensure you focus on products which serve same purpose, for instance to qualify Notepad++ you can make use of Notepad test results.
You have filed ample number of exceptional user flow defects, does it means you are good in error guessing? May not be, any tester can spot defect with the help of requirements doc/plan artifacts. The technique/heuristics which you use to uncover defects determines whether you have applied error guessing or not. To illustrate: A tester well versed with web application may use case like this one, key- in “<Script>alert (Alert message);</Script>” in any text area in website & check what it does.
Have comments? Please share it; I am eager to hear your valuable suggestions
