Interactive media testing: who, what, where, how

As with all other areas of interactive development, testing has exploded into a specialism of its own, but this comes with some baggage because specialists expect some kind of career progression. It appears that the tradition for testers has been to transfer out sideways after a couple of years into development or project management. With the emphasis from clients being on proven performance of interactive products, myriad test results have become important in demonstrating your company’s worth. So a drain on your experienced testers is less tolerable now.

What do we know about testers? This is exactly what Chris George addresses in his posting at The Ministry of Testing in, Testing: an Obvious Career Choice (20.10.13). He’s realised that the many automated tests breed boredom and so testers move. His answer is to educate testers to demonstrate that there is a skills progression across sectors of testing by using a skills map. He has reached other conclusions too, so it’s worth a look at the map and analysis of his findings.

Rob Lambert at The Social Tester (18.10.13), seems to agree about boredom for testers and automated testing but his answer is to throw in challenges. This begins a dialogue on,’who are testers and what is their position in iMedia development?’

If you think you know about testing categories and what tests to recommend to your clients, take a look at Website Testing and the tools they review over 19 categories! We’ll let their list blow your mind! . Their checklists for testing are handy too. We lead you to their ecommerce checklist here, but there are others. These cover the ‘what to test’ and ‘where’.

Well, there’s just the ‘how’ to address now. Automation is rife as we’ve understood from ‘Testing Web Sites’, but there’s a mixed solution to some aspects of testing because user testing involves real people and real situations/cases. This has become partially automated too but that can point you to faster solutions for management and clients while taking you outside the purely automated box. User Testing.com specialise in online user testing that gives you fast-taste feedback. Yes, they are pushing themselves and their service but their client reaction including large brands is enviable. See www.usertesting.com/buzz.

Just to end on a bit of humour, Gerald Thulbourn berates PayPal (calls them ‘muppets’ repeatedly) for neglecting to do their own testing on some of their own sample code whilst warning others that changes they are making might affect their previous coding!