After having talked about the lack of Software Testing-oriented references and testing techniques knowledge which, nowadays, seem to affect a lot of Software Testing professionals, it’s high time I went a little deeper into another curious phenomenon which, in my opinion, definitely denotes a serious lack of testing mindset.
Quite obviously, I want to talk about the umpteenth surprising (at least for me) thing which happened throughout the infamous meetup about so-called “Automated Testing” I recently attended, and which really shocked me.
It was when the presenter —while talking about the fact that, at the organization she works for, they are often releasing defects into production— justified this with a quite disturbing argument: “Well, if our customers are happy, why should we bother?“
Followed —after probably noticing the astonishment on my face— by the addition: “Of course, if we were testing medical devices, we couldn’t do that…”
Now, not only can I definitely confirm that, if you were testing medical devices, you couldn’t do that —unless you’ve previously performed a risk analysis, determined that the cost and effort to eliminate the corresponding bug is much greater than the benefit to the user, and responsibly informed the customer about all that—, but I take the opportunity to invite you to reflect on and try to reformulate your previous statement.
Do you really want to know why you should bother?
Well, basically because, as a tester —I mean, as a real one—, it’s your responsibility to take care of what could bother your customers…
By the way, since, as a tester, it’s also your responsibility to challenge your assumptions, are you sure your customers are really happy?
#ThisIsASeriousLackOfTestingMindset
As a user, I can’t stand reporting a defect. It will just really frustrate me until I either stop using the software or find a workaround.
We recently released some refactoring work which may have broken the workflow of one of our primary user types, since they’re now getting hundreds of 404 errors a day for a certain URL when they weren’t before the release. Noticed it when looking over production event logs. We had no idea they were using that workflow, it was not designed as such. Some people tried the URL over and over and over again within a couple minutes, so I’d guess they were pretty frustrated. But nothing was reported.
Thanks for your comment, Nicholas.
You made two interesting observations here.
On one hand, instead of reporting a bug, some users may just decide to stop using the software.
On the other hand, software companies should never underestimate the fact that not all users will necessarily use a product as designed.
All in all, this is why I believe a genuine testing mindset is so important.