Chrome Web Store Apps That Assists Software Testing

Hey passionate testers out there, hope you all had a great New Year 2012 celebration. I wish you all have tremendous success follow you in all the steps that you take forward with courage. I pray for all your testing dreams come true in 2012.

Chrome Web Store

In this New Year I have started to explore the Chrome web store and found few interesting Apps that are helping me to enhance my testing skills. Apparently there are other places where you can get Apps, like The Apple store and Android Market. But my search was specific in finding free Apps that assist me for better testing via Chrome web store. Meanwhile Mashable published a statistics on Google Chrome that created a lot more interest in me i.e. Google's Chrome surpassed Mozilla's Firefox as the world's number two browser behind Microsoft's internet explorer globally in November, according StatCounter. Thus I started to drill down to find more apps that I can use while testing in Google Chrome, to an extent where I have been using Mozilla Firefox add-ons. Now it's time to share the Chrome Web Store Apps that assists testing, those are listed below. But before that try figuring out, how to install free Apps if you aren't aware of it from here:

1. Allow Right Click*: It re-enables the possibility to use the context menu on sites that overrides it. This cracks the right click disable feature in most of the live banking website. It can be a security threat for the bankers who think they have tried to limit the scope of hacking by disabling the mouse right click. It can be a real treat for testers who are trying to uncover security vulnerability.

2. What Font*: It helps to find out the fonts used in webpage. Fire bug and Webkit Inspector are easy enough to use for developers. However, for others, this should not be necessary. With this extension, you could inspect web fonts, font family, font size, line height and color code by just hovering on them. It is simple & elegant.

3. iMacros*: Automate your web browsers. Record and play repetitious work. Of course, there are few limitation in this iMacros automation checks like other automation tools. But it fits for minimal purpose.

4. IE Tab*: This App displays IE7, 8, 9 within Chrome. Testing the web-pages within Google Chrome along with different versions of IE is featured in this app.

5. CSS Tester*: This helps to test css on real time website. All you need to do is to type the css style rule in popup window after installing the App, and it gets applied to website in real time.

6. Firebug Lite for Google Chrome*: Firebug lite provides the rich visual representation we are used to see in Firebug when it comes to HTML elements, DOM elements, and Box Model shading. It also provides some cool features like inspecting HTML elements with your mouse and live editing CSS properties.

7. Mail Trap*: Mailtrap is a standardized solution for the problem of e-mail notification testing with those notifications isolation from real users of your app. It allows viewing all of your e-mails on line on the Mailtrap site, then forwarding them to your normal mailbox if needed. Simply putting ‘mailtrap.io’as the default SMTP server in your application’s configuration allows viewing all of the emails your application delivers without spamming your real customers.

*All the App titles are being linked to respective App at the Chrome web store. Apps have little limitation and it may not fit to the purpose at times and maybe otherwise. I suggest you to read through the instructions carefully from Chrome web store and then apply it accordingly to suite your purpose. Happy exploring!

Best Regards,
Shiva Mathivanan

LinkedIn – Error message is invalid and unhelpful

I see that the error I posted last year November 2010 to LinkedIn still isn't fixed. If you had missed that bug report, you can view it from here - "LinkedIn-Error message is valid but unhelpful". While trying to reproduce the error which I had posted last year, I found yet another error. However this time, the error danced at me is very invalid and ultimately unhelpful. It blocked my action to precede what to do next. Crazy me!

As soon I reveal there is a quick challenge awaiting for you. So closely follow up to reproduce!

Bug Title: LinkedIn- User warning message is invalid and unhelpful.
Defect Module: Invite Friends.
Severity: Medium
Priority: Medium
Tested Environment: Google Chrome 14.0.835.202 m on Win 7

Steps to reproduce:
1. Login with valid credentials to www.linkedin.com in any browser.
2. Choose a friend, to whom you want to connect from the top right navigation of the page from "People You May Know" section.
3. Click on the "+Connect" link
4. Choose the "Friend" option button from "How do you know '?'
5. Replace the existing personal note with below message

Hi user,
I am a new user.Please add me up.Thanks.
Regards,
User.

6. Click on "Send Invitation" button
7. Refer the screenshot to view the error.

LinkedIn - Invite Friends

Observed Result:
I got warning message in RED stating... "We're sorry, you cannot include website addresses in invitations. Please remove the website address and try again."

Expected Result:
Require appropriate user warning message. Field level error validation warning message needs to be examined to offer necessary user status message which could add value to the existing user base.

-Bug Report Ends-

Hey LinkedIn - You asked me to include a personal note, so I did. But you are asking sorry, to inform me that I cannot add website address in invitations. I also feel sorry to say that I did not add any website address in the personal note. You can very well see my personal note in the screenshot.

Testing Challenge:
Hey testers out there,
Can you do a quick bug investigation on the error that I have reported and let me know - How that error message could have been triggered?

If you would like to learn more about Bug Investigation skills before you start working on above testing challenge then click on these link here & here.

Best Regards,
Shiva Mathivanan

Bridging Relationship: Testers vs Programmers

Today my co-tester and I had spent few minutes talking about the problems he faced during his test iteration over a cup of hot espresso cappuccino at office cafeteria. He was explaining about the problems he faces with a programmer (in his cubicle) to whom he closely interacts and works. After hearing him for a while I diagnosed that my co-tester is actually diseased. Yes, he is badly infected with 'programmer syndrome' disease. The cause of this disease is to show high symptom of 'always complaining/talking about developer's incapability/problem'. The effect of this disease is it will create adverse effect on his own thinking capability of not to acquire more testing skills and in other words it affects the right way of building tester mindset.

"Leaving the problems apart, ah...wait...NO - I can't leave my problems just like that, I still have more problems to complain my developers - Yes I'm a tester, how can I be without problems? 


Gurr...I too have many problems to complain a tester in my module who is really bad. - Yes I'm a programmer, I face unnecessary problems with 'that' tester!"

I have also heard from many testers complaining about programmers that they write buggy code, creates buggy product, doesn't know how to code well, doesn't accept my valid bugs and specifically pointing to a specific programmer complaining like...'look THAT programmer is not good', etc. Concurrently I have heard programmers say like, I hate THAT tester every time when I read his bug reports -writes silly bugs, 'THAT tester always annoys me -I don't know why', 'look THAT tester does real bad job'. My question to both the programmer & testers is -Is being bad a birth trait? Please start thinking about it. I think, being bad is an acquired skill as being good. At the same time we cannot dwell well with the bad programmer/tester if we are highly skilled enough (at least to our presumptions), yeah? That's where the underlying problem is. So how are we going to bridge the good and bad of a tester or a programmer to smash this bias thereby one can bridge the relationship better. It's a highly debatable topic, isn't?

After working in this software testing craft for 5 years, I realize that this gap between a tester (who tests the functional/non functional code of a program) and programmer (who writes software program codes) should be bridged well for smooth commutation of software product releases without any bias. Thus I tried to implement a practice to myself i.e. the practice of understanding a good tester/programmer and spotting a bad tester/programmer with 10 noticeable points. I consulted the same to my co-testers & programmers and they found it useful. Glad to know it was also useful for them to understand who is a good tester/programmer and thereby they cleared their mind traps and let the decision with management for bad tester/programmer actionable points. Later good testers have continued to start bridging excellent reputation with good programmers and good programmers have got everything they wanted from a good tester (effective bug reports, test reports, feature modification requests, heuristics, etc.). My co-testers & programmers have got benefited to build and bridge excellent relationships together for successful product releases. Thus I would like to share the same tips in this post, presuming it may embrace another tester/programmer as well.

Ten good tips to spot a good tester:
1. Use sapience well.
2. Have high technical aptitude skills.
3. Have strong analytical, lateral, logical and critical thinking skills
4. Does bug advocacy & brainstorms well.
5. Writes effective/reliable bug reports and loves to gain/build credibility from programmers & team.
6. Involves programmer in test design reviews and have excellent go-getter attitude.
7. Enjoy playing around with business logic against the application under test to uncover more defects.
8. Looks intellectual, updates his testing skills periodically through weekend testing.
9. Always acquire high reputation from the development house of managers, programmers, testers, clients and also creates high demand to assist other testers. Possess training & mentoring skills.
10. Will be a good team player with excellent team building skills.

Ten good tips to spot a bad tester:
1. Write bug reports which seem to be very unique & useful for programmers. However realizes lately that it was a one-line bug report, no records of identified-problem attached to the artifacts, no screen grab/video capture, no clear bug summary, etc... More realization happens when programmer comes to tester desk and ask for "I don't understand 'what the problem is?' in the reported bug, can you please explain more in detail?"

2. Waits until information comes to his desk, doesn't hold high energy or go-getter attitude. Love not to come-out of comfort zone.

3. Compare & complain about the work culture, test teams, programmers with current employer to his/her previous employer. Knowingly or unknowingly kills own time along with the person who sits next to him or an online chat friend. Rather than spending time in other useful test activities.

4. Misunderstands business logic.
5. Doesn't show interest to increase his/her knowledge space by doing collaborative or paired testing. 

6. Never question the functional instructions, follows blindly.

7. Restricts sharing.

8. Hesitate to seek for help or never asks

9. Restricts learning.

10. Sleeps in office.

Ten good tips to spot a good programmer:
1. Write neat codes with clear comments.

2. Understands tester perspective & customer demands well.

3. Knows the importance of extensive unit testing.

4. Put right questions to tester to seek defect co-occurrence.

5. Fix bugs considering integration & regression issues.

6. Informs tester to test diligently on specific modules as there would be higher chances of code breaks, well in advance prior customer release/review.

7. Follow up with tester periodically to assess "how recent build works?" Sets expectations of what needs to be tested, based on current situation.

8. Invites tester to periodic developmental team meetings that he/she participates to urge the interest of knowing "how tester tests differently unlike programmers".

9. Motivate testers to raise more defects on the built code, sits next to tester and observe carefully of the tests he performs. And appreciate for the bug he/she finds in programmer code.

10. The wire frames, business logic, software requirement specification, functional workarounds will be in his finger tips.

Ten good tips to spot a bad programmer:
1. Writes lengthy & duplicate codes with improper naming conventions.

2. The desired functionality will be made to work, without integrating the dependency features of the same functionality taking into account. This leads to adverse integration issues.

3. Often forgets to commit the updated codes to repository.
4. Writes buggy codes with unclear 'comments'. Comments will help another/new programmer or tester to understand the logical work flow of the written code.

5. Often forgets the syntax.

6. Poor understanding of the business logic, leads to write complex code for simple workaround.

7. Never do Impact analysis, fails to plan & analyze the overall cause-and-effect of the functions before writing codes. 

8. No development patterns.
9. Considers testers are of no use. Who has false presumptions of anyone can test & tester do not necessarily require any skills. Doesn't appreciate a good tester who adds value to the product of the programmers build.

10. Who is not afraid to re-factor whenever and wherever applicable.

Tester Vs Programmer

All we need to do is to understand the good and bad of both to realize current contexts. I believe and follow that he, who understands the realism, can wisely react well. I truly believe that there are no best practices. However, there are lots of good practices available. If the good practice seems best practices in your contexts, then it may work for you go-ahead!

Best Regards,
Shiva Mathivanan

Disclaimer: Like how doctors hide patients database to anonymous I'm purposely hiding the diseased co-tester name as he is under my treatment now. I might reveal his details once he gets completely recovered from 'programmer syndrome' disease. :)

Super Star Tester of Chennai

Hi there, please read the above blog-post "title" if you did not read it for the first time. I'm sure you would have read at least once by now. However you can only have the privilege to read, because this "title" had already been grabbed by someone from Chennai region for Jan-Mar 2011. If you're a tester from Chennai and if you would like to get this awesome "title" for Apr-Jun 2011 then, all you need to do is to continue reading this post to dig more! :)

As you had read above "title" you probably may have many questions to ask like 'Super Star Tester', what is it all about? - Might be you're very first question, isn't? Followed by 'how it is assessed'? And 'on what basis though? Etc. Like you, I too had the same thought when I received the first-email from Bharath on Mar 31,2011 at 11:06 AM IST. Bharath is an enthusiastic tester and active moderator of Chennai testing Google groups. His second-email had all answers to the questions I have had. I hope you too will be answered.

Bharath had sent two emails, first-email was regarding the award "title" and the second-email was about the winner of the "title". The first-email regarding the introduction of awarding "title" is copy-pasted over here:

---

	from  bharath s sbharath1012@gmail.com
reply-to		chennai-testing@googlegroups.com
to		chennai-testing@googlegroups.com
date		Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 11:06 AM
subject		Super Star Tester of Chennai
mailing list		Filter messages from this mailing list
mailed-by		googlegroups.com
signed-by		googlegroups.com
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Hi All

I know this would be as a surprise to all of you... So here is the news..

Chennai Testing User Group has planned to recognize a Super Star Tester Of Chennai every quarterly and in recognition of their contribution Chennai Testing User Group would send a PRIZE to the Super star Tester of Chennai.

Selection of Super Star Tester is based on what that person has done for the testing community and to the Chennai testing User Group...

So For the month of Jan-Mar We have selected a SUPER STAR TESTER from Chennai and that persons is........................and this person has done........................

Will be announced in 15 min... ;)

~Bharath---

---

After a while, I received an second follow up email addressing the winner. The email was packed with full of surprises and new rewarding strategy of Chennai testing user group. The unedited draft is copy-pasted below to preserve the spirit. :)

---

	from  bharath s sbharath1012@gmail.com
reply-to		chennai-testing@googlegroups.com
to		chennai-testing@googlegroups.com
date		Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 12:01 PM
subject		Re: Super Star Tester of Chennai
mailing list		Filter messages from this mailing list
mailed-by		googlegroups.com
signed-by		googlegroups.com
unsubscribe		Unsubscribe from this mailing-list

So how do I become a Super Star Tester of Chennai?

Your contribution to the Testing Community by any ways will make you eligible for the super star tester of Chennai. contribution can be in terms of 

 - sharing your learning in the chennai testing group or your blog 

 - Giving a presentation on your learning during the chennai testers meeting 

 - Inviting speakers for the chennai testers meeting

 - Helping the Chennai testing User Group to have their meeting in your office conference hall (of    course with permission from your office).

 - Spreading the awareness regarding various events and playing a role in making people attending workshops and conference and letting them know about the      importance of networking. 

What do i get?

Chennai testing user group will recognize your work and send you a prize and also blog and let the people from the outside world know about your contribution in Testing. 

PS - If you would like to sponsor the next prize for the Super Star Tester of Chennai .. do let me know before.

So what has the winner done to get the Super Star Tester Of Chennai?

- He has traveled to banglore just to meet testers in Banglore to gain and share knowledge in Testing.

- He not only trains his Juniors in his office but also let them know about the events related to testing and he had come with his entire team for the bug debug event     which    happened in chennai.

- He also shares his knowledge to the entire chennai testing group by blogging about his learnings and also sharing various other great testers blogs to the community.

- He will soon be a major part of the Chennai testers meeting and increase his contribution for the Testing community.

and the list goes on...

If you think you also want to become a Super Star Tester in Chennai.. Start helping the testing community in chennai to GROW. Contribute as much as possible for the community. "You may not get result of your contribution immediately but you will get it someday when you actually deserve it."

After all this build up the winner is .... None other than...Shivakumar Mathivanan 

The winner for the month of Jan - Mar 2011 is Shivakumar Mathivanan. 

Blogger at http://shivakumar-mathivanan.blogspot.com | Tweet- xploresqa | contact- shivakumar.mathivanan@gmail.com | Linkedin- http://in.linkedin.com/in/shivakumarmathivanan  

PS - Shiva you prize will reach you in a week's time

Thanks

---

Note to Myself: What did I do to achieve this reward "title"? I did NOTHING. 'Nothing' compared to what? 'Nothing' compared to my limelight mentors tireless efforts and their service to testing community. Frankly, truly, deeply I wanted to help myself learn better testing. To which I collaborated with other like-minded testers to get educated. At the same time, I never hesitate to help my co-tester who shows great potential to learn. I practice learning, practice reading, practice better testing, practice writing. I constantly seek feeds from limelight testers. Read and re-read good books, blogs and thereby I get a chance to interpret every human testing mind. All the more I share what I learn.

It was a great moment for me to get cherished by Chennai testing community to shower their best wishes and appreciations. I'm very grateful for the prize book received - You're Hired. Thanks to everyone involved!

Best Regards,

Shiva Mathivanan

Join Chennai Testing User Group || Join Chennai Testers Monthly Meet 

Chennai Testers Monthly Meet

Hi Testers,

I was longing for one such meet in Chennai for the testing community to get benefitted after attending one in Bangalore . There's a fantastic group of testers meet-up happening every month at Chennai. It is being conducted by Indian testing board. As Pradeep Soundararajan rightly pointed in his latest post on Testers Meet Across India here comes an panel of opportunities for Chennai Testers. If you're a tester or an emerging tester who want to learn free education through constant self learning by collaborating with other successful testers in industry then here is a chance for you to drive success within you're self. Go Join Chennai Testers Monthly Meet.

To seek more information on Chennai testers & forth coming testers monthly meet should join Chennai testers Google Groups, here .

Best Regards,
Shiva Mathivanan

Compatibility Test Report

I was asked to-do compatibility testing for an upcoming large consumer website. Compatibility testing is a part of software non-functional testing. This testing is conducted on the application to evaluate the application’s compatibility against browsers in respect to different computing environment.

I'm extremely delighted to do compatibility testing for the 8th time, in close to 5 years of my experience in this testing craft. However, when about to do compatibility testing for a new large customer website I was thinking how good am I going to report this time, when compared to my previous test experiences?. Usually I do create a check-list of tests that I perform during my test activity, basically it’s kind of recording my tests in an Microsoft office excel during test execution and fail the respective tests across browser/OS if bugs are discovered or pass the tests if I'm happy that the current .html file works fine with the updated design specification. I know I'm following a conventional method of reporting to which the management is already happy with. But I now wanted to try something new, which I haven't tried so far. Thereby I can learn new things from the planned test activity. That's when I received a tweet from Lisa Crispin pointing to Christin's blog on Going to the extreme - xBTM. I started to read Christin's blog, I liked the way she used mind map for creating test reports. Her reports impressed me a lot and it amplified my right brain thinking to create my own Compatibility Test Report. Isn't that sounding interesting?

Compatibility Test report using Mind map:
The mind map can be used to easily understand in which all operating systems and browsers the html pages works well with the design specification we referred to match with and in which all browser/OS it doesn't work as expected. This will be an on-going mind map which we can update in consecutive test-iteration as well. The static html pages marked with ‘X’ symbol denotes it has bugs, those marked with 'tick' symbol has passed through QA. And No Entry ‘(-)’ symbol denotes it has not assigned for testing. Smiley denotes we, the development team have developed perfectly matching the design specification. Look what I have created from below snapshot. It may serve you're purpose as well if you would like to create one for your organization! :)

Compatibility Test Report_encompassing first-Iteration results

I got great appreciations for this compatibility test report initiative. If it also serves your purpose, then please do let me know. Also, I would love to hear your hurdles while creating this test report. So together we can learn better!

Best Regards,
Shiva Mathivanan

PS: The .html files mentioned are not real file names. I had purposefully hidden the project name and relevant html pages of the website I test for authentication issues.  

Why testers should attend software testing conference?

4 weeks ago, I received a tweet from @sbharath1012 with early bird registration details to unite participants for software testing conference in India, Chennai on 29th January 2011. It is all about the Bug.deBug test community. In next few fractions of seconds I started to share this tweet to my co-testers, they seem to be exciting about it. This time I'm glad to see all my co-testers were interested to attend Chennai testing conference, unlike few of my co-testers who was reluctant earlier in Aug 2010 for Bangalore testers meet up. They might have rejected because of geographical delimits I guess ;) but this time everyone was prepared to meet other testers to confer & learn. Yes, that’s when I started to realize the change in Indian tester’s mindset.

Mindset-change to confer has begun:
The time when rest of the testing community would probably be having a long day sleep on a Saturday morning, my co-testers like @GreatApeTested, @senthil_k_v , @aparulprasath, @siva_qa & @ponkm and I were all set to participate in testing conference at Tidel Park Auditorium . The registration process started to begin even before the scheduled time 0900 AM IST to manage the crowd. Yes, I was able to see more than 200 passionate testers waiting in a long queue to enter into the conference hall. That’s an amazing big crowd of the first ever meet of Bug.deBug testing event isn’t?

Events scheduled to trigger testers thinking hats:
The time when the volunteers of Bug.deBug council was pushing each esteemed guest speakers to meet the start-and-stop time with the minute hoarding as per their planned-scheduled, I was thinking wont each speaker continue to share their test experience throughout the day, I know it’s an impossible claim :) . Each tester-speaker was unique in the way they had grown up from a beginner to expert level. It was a great forum for every one of us to learn how they grew, and what problems they faced during their daily-test-activities and how they resolved to become a successful tester today. The elite speakers showcasing the presentations can be viewed from the below links for FREE.

1. Vipul kocher, President, Indian Testing Board, presented on “Present problems and future solutions"

Notes from Shiva Mathivanan: Time is a terrible teacher, so am I. The future of testing lies on we thinking innovatively and let code do its best. Technology is the slave, Idea is the master. Ask yourself are you a better person today than yesterday BUT ask how better are you? Is the question we must ask ourself.

2. Narayan Raman, CEO, Tyto Software presented on "Economical, Robust Web Automation using Sahi "
Notes from Shiva Mathivanan: Sahi a free download test tool, works well with Ajax, web 2.0, Agile methodologies. Sahi records on all browsers

3. Pradeep Soundararajan, Director, Moolya Testing, presented on "Notes from a problem solving tester consultant"

Notes from Shiva Mathivanan: Pradeep's speech was too short to me. I felt he should have spoken for much longer time :). It had so much of humour, fun & learnings.

4. Ruturaj Doshi, QA Lead, Eual Experts India Ltd, presented on "Smarter ways of doing Selenium Automation(Functional Test Automation) "

Notes from Shiva Mathivanan: Great explanation of functional test automation.

5. Anuj Magazine, Manager, Products (Globalization Services), presented on "The Emerging Trend of Cloud Computing and Software Testing "
Notes from Shiva Mathivanan: Cloud is a metaphor for Internet. More information is provided in slides.

6. Ajay Balamurugadas, Senior QA Engineer, EFI India Pvt. Ltd, presented on "I am the Bug Hunter"
Notes from Shiva Mathivanan: Mindmap, MerryHadALittleLamb. Test for yourselves. Finding bugs is one of the information you provide to stake holders. Get to know/understand who we are? Why are we here?

7. Praveen Singh, Founder, 99 tests presented on "Testing at Startups "
Notes from Shiva Mathivanan: 99tests is an inspiring website to participate and win prize during weekends for passionate testers.

Testing Tips: 
All the testers were requested to stick testing tips for the rest of the testers community to get learnt. I have placed my three tips onto the sticky board. I know its hard to find mine in the snap shot :). And the best testing tip was awarded with great books. 'Lessons learnt in software testing by Michael Bolton' and 'Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono'. I was worried that my testing tip was not up for the it. :(. During the testing event a donation box was kept to help our tester friend. We still have time to help him. Please do help chandru, thanks!


Interactive Q&A session:
Participant testers who ever raised hands was provided with microphone to shoot the uncover questions for which they found straight-forward answers from the guest-speakers. The best question was awarded with fabulous books. We all had drinks, cookies, lunch, T-shirt and participation certificate as well. On the whole, the Bug.deBug in association with non-profit society RIA-RUI did a remarkable testing event to be cherished in the hearts & brains of Chennai software testers. I'm sure the participants whoever attended cannot disagree my statement, rather they could have more interesting stories from their end unlike me to share about it. If so I would like to hear about your stories as well!

If I have missed to highlight any important factor, please comment about it!
Best Regards,
Shiva Mathivanan

I'm in software testing eBook

My long awaited eBook is released.
Daily Testing Tip and Software Testing Club have launched an eBook recently. I’m extremely happy to see the eBook created with one simple but powerful idea which turned into a fabulous eBook for a great cause. The idea was a twitter challenge prompted by Daily Testing Tip's Anne-Marie Charrett to complete the phrase "If I were a test case I would..." The response was overwhelming to tribute for a cause.

The cause is to help Chandrashekar B.N (Chandru). Chandru is a passionate tester and we testers are contributing our sincere prayers and money to beat his Blood Cancer. Yes, Chandru is affected with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. For more information please continue surfing more web links here: http://helpchandru.com | http://bit.ly/9LyGyi | http://bit.ly/cW0u6k .You're helping hands are equally better as you're praying lips. Please help Chandru. Thank you!

@xploresqa is Shiva Mathivanan:
I was patiently going through each sections of eBook page-by-page. However, I was impatient to check whether I have made my five responses up for eBook?. I typed CTRL + F in my QWERTY keyboard to get where I wanted to reach. Yes I have made it. My twitter name @xploresqa along with my 3 responses was featured in software testing eBook. I smiled with pleasure :) . Thank you @charrett for this wonderful initiative.

3/5:
I am glad to see my name in popular software testing eBook. Out of my 5 responses you can find 3 of them in the eBook which you gonna download shortly. Those were:

Download eBook for Free:
It contains over 200 interesting responses and cartoons (created by Cartoon Tester) from the testing community answering and completing the following sentence: "If I were a test case, I would...".Please do have a read. There are some really great responses there. Download it for free here - http://bit.ly/dPpiXC

Enjoy reading testing eBook!

Best Regards,
Shiva Mathivanan.

LinkedIn – Error message is valid but unhelpful

Today I started to test forgot password functionality of a CMS (content management system) driven portal. I now wanted to relate the existing functionality of 'forgot password' with popular portals to understand its behavior. Why I wanted to relate with the existing system is because we don’t have reliable functional specification of the portal I test on the whole and more particularly on 'forgot password' module. I truly believe that functional specification won’t be sufficient enough for me to create new test ideas so as to add value to the software products I test. Thus I have chosen LinkedIn portal to understand its ‘forgot password’ module. LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network portal has over 80 million members in over 200 countries. When I started to map the behaviour of LinkedIn with the portal I wanted to test a bug started to dance in my screen. That text field validation bug is not in the portal I wanted to test but in LinkedIn. If you are curious to know what the bug is? Read through my bug report.

Bug Title: LinkedIn – Forgot Password's error message is valid but unhelpful.

Defect Module: Password Reset.
Severity: Medium.
Priority: Medium.
Tested Environment: Mozilla Firefox V3.0 & Google Chrome V7.0 on Windows XP professional V5.1 Service Pack 2 operating system.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Enter this url www.linkedin.com in any browser. 
2. Click on Sign In link from menu or from 'Join LinkedIn Today' form at right navigation to get redirected to secured hypertext transfer protocol i.e. https://www.linkedin.com/secure/login?trk=hb_signin  
3. Now, click on Forgot password? Link, adjacent to Password text filed.
4. I see a very sensible user friendly instruction from LinkedIn, for LinkedIn users like me. I appreciate it i.e. “Please enter the email address you used to create your LinkedIn account, and we will send you a link to reset your password”. Thanks to LinkedIn for that.
5. Now, do not wait to hit the ‘Submit Address’ button leaving the text field blank.

Screen shot of the defect area:

LinkedIn - Forgot Password?

Observed Result:
I see a warning message stating 'Please correct the marked field(s) below.'
along with "Please enter a value." field level validation error message as soon I hit 'submit address' button. Following questions struck me to continue retrieving my new password from LinkedIn.


Heuristic questions to LinkedIn:

1. What VALUE do you expect your user to enter to get new password?
2.  If you question me, Hey Shiva Mathivanan: Don't you consider email address as a value? I have an answer for you from wikipedia. The word 'value' is ambiguous. 
3. As soon I enter some value example'123' (this value struck my mind instantly when I read "Please enter a value", not sure why I did that instead of entering special characters like !@#$%^&*()~`, ASCII character, Time & Date or QWERTY Keyboard strings, ) and when hit ‘Submit Address’ button I get “Please enter a valid email address” error message. Why don’t you wish to ask me this for the first time, when I hit Submit button leaving the text box empty?

Extra Informations:  

1. Reproducibility - 100%
2. Can the user get some helpful error message like" Please enter a valid email address" instead of "Please enter a value"?
3. "Please enter a value" field level validation error message may be hard coded. Maybe a curious developer who wanted to see his functional code gets working has done without considering who the end user are?

Note: Extra informations can be used to ascertain expected results.

Thanks for spending valuable time,
Shiva Mathivanan.

PS: Maybe next time I will post a serious bug, if you consider this issue as 'not so serious' bug. I never wait to post defects after bug investigation as soon I uncover, that's how I work and coach to my co-testers. I have started reporting this bug to communicate LinkedIn & the software world that creates less user friendly products with valid but unhelpful error messages.

As a tester get to know what questions can a tester generate from Million questions a tester should ask by Pradeep Soundararajan. I'm sure you won't question any more that why tester's want to question? :)

It's all about tester's mindset

Hurray, it’s Friday and I'm back home after work. It's quite a quiet week, as we met all test deliverables as per scheduled date & time.
 

While I drove back home, a car adjacent to me crossed his lane violating traffic rules and was about to hit me and I slowed down for a while to allow him to overtake, else there would be a great smash-up between us followed by huge traffic Jam. If you know about Chennai traffic you can easily imagine the latter situation very well.

Right away, I questioned my project manager, who accompanied me in the car, that why the hell is he violating the traffic rules. To which he replied calmly It's simple that we Indians take advantage of our circumstances and won't be self-disciplined ( his comment made me to ponder for a while that "Hey Shiva Mathivanan, how self- disciplined are you?, self-critic". Now I realize what is left to improve within myself). My project manager then made an additional comment, that we Indians never trash waste's in dustbin could be biodegradable or non-biodegradable wastes we don't mind in clearing trashes like chocolate wrappers, coke cans, pet bottles, polythene bags, etc in dustbin even if the dustbin's are at reachable proximity. We never even think to spit on roads, and violate traffic rules. Have you also noticed that the same Indian who moves overseas to Singapore and other European countries never even tries to indulge in undisciplined behaviour, that he had done for so many years in India? I sensed his strong emotional feeling that is oriented towards his real grievance. To my surprise, why do we try to adopt with conditions in overseas and sincerely tries to take advantage of our Indian circumstances rather than being self-disciplined all the time? Why do we behave so?

This instance disturbed my consciousness and made to relate our Indian mindset with Indian tester's mindset, of questioning myself "How we are?-Why we are?-The way we are?"

Note: This is about smart Indian testers who are resistive to change, for good. So please don't generalize this about all smart Indian testers.

How we are - Why we are - The way we are?

• We don't want to be blamed from project manager or QA Manager treeing "how did you miss this defect when you tested last month?” while we have all possible reasons to JUSTIFY it. Why do we behave so?

• We don't we want to be damned among everyone in team meetings for our own flaws; however we are very much comfortable if the same curse is fed in privacy. Why do we behave so?

• We always want us to be in comfort zone of 'level B'. I respect the transformation we have earned from 'Level A' to 'Level B', but why aren't we open to learn and advance to other degrees? Do we still want to be in comfort zone of 'Level B' with full knowledge and deliberation than attempting to direct ourselves to other levels? Why do we behave so?

• We don't want to be questioned by anyone in office space. But why aren't we open to questions and have patience to provide worthy answers?

• We will test functionalities/GUI to validate what is detailed in functional specification to confirm testability and we won't question the software product to raise more valid issues, which is not elaborated in user specification? Example -what if the user-friendly error message is accurate but unhelpful?. Why are we not prepared to question the system out-of-heuristics?. Michael Bolton say's a direct violation of a reliable specification is probably a bug and we tester need to change the question "does this test pass or fail? to a question that better addresses a possible threat to someone's values:"Is there a problem here?". Why do we fail to test and raise question to the team, instead we argue that it is not provided in the functional specification, so it was left untested. Although we are very sure that most of the specification won't be reliable for everyone in the team?

• If we aren't open for Idea's, where will we find the room for our own improvements? Why do we behave so?

• There are various models which have been presented in the past 20 years in the field of software engineering for development and testing. Most of the tester's who worked in those famous testing models like Waterfall Model, V Model, W Model, Spiral Model and Butterfly Model are coined as traditional tester's and these models are said to be outdated as it cannot be followed in the current trend of the way we work in Software testing. It is true because testing craft has made us to learn in recent times of "what is the best fit of tests required for the project we get to test" hence most of the companies rely on building agile manifesto - a change for good. How many testers are prepared to change their pattern of testing for good? We always resist to changing. Why do we behave so?

• Why are we not confident enough to test a software application or a product without a functional specification? Michael Bolton say's you don't always need to wait for complete specifications to start your testing effort here. Why are we not up for that yet?

• When have we conceded, recently that 'Yes, It's my mistake. I will correct next time'. Why are we failing to accept our own mistakes? If we cannot consent ourselves, how will we understand the impact of the mistakes that might have affected the team's deliverable and if we can't understand the severity of it how will we amend, next time?

Our way of reacting to a situation is adopted by how we are. Why we are reacting to the way we are? is because we are directly related to instance of our current learning respective to our current level of expertise. The problem here is that we aren't upgrading our learning skills. Get to know why smart people struggle behind reacting to change by Rajesh Setty.

Harry Robinson, Test Architect for Microsoft's Enterprise Management Division predicts the future of testing here.I now foresee that the change he expects has began to infect, BUT the change isn't COMPLETELY infected for good.

Thanks for spending valuable time,

Shiva Mathivanan.

"We learn little from victory, much from defeat. Don't think in terms of Win or Lose. You cannot always win, but you can always learn".-Jerry Weinberg.

Witnessed Bangalore Testers Meet-up #4

This blog post is the aftermath of my recent learning experience. I saw a tweet from Santhosh Tuppad, author of www.tuppad.com on Bangalore Testers Meet-up #4 August 28th, 2010 at 0600 PM IST.

Quick 5 questions chewed my mind were,
1. What’s this tester’s meet-up is all about?
2. What would be the agenda?
3. What could be the outcome of this meet-up?
4. What’s new will I be learning & sharing, if I take part in this meet-up?
5. How will I be benefited, if I want to travel all the way to Bangalore from Chennai?

Quick answers from Santhosh Tuppad.
I invited myself to this party. Began to negotiate, got cool answers with broad *smiles*. I like him, for his hospitality, you want to know why - continue reading his very first reply...

Wow, I am glad to hear it from you Shiva. This is really amazing and I am seeing the change in Indian testers willing to travel for meeting testers and interacting with them. This is amazing. You are most welcome. You can come to the meet-up my dear friend. Please share your phone number so that I can call you and talk to you. *Thumbs up*.
Cheers!
Santhosh Tuppad

Quick investment of 6 hrs journey. (from Chennai-To-Bangalore)
When I shared this piece of information to my colleagues they were greatly interested to be an active participant of this summit. That sounded interesting to me, while two of my other colleague were little reluctant since they had other personal works. Since then, I got approval from Santhosh to bring two more co-testers Ajwan & Sivakumar-the test enthusiast to this summit. 'Approval Granted'- we landed safe, checked in at my friends place and after refreshment we were all set to take part in the meet-up. Breeze was so cool at 0545 pm IST, is the time when I rang Santhosh to Check for his availability. He was right there at Transit, Forum Mall, Bangalore. Right at 0600 pm, we just started with some introduction talk while we were waiting for other participants to come.

Quick testing in 15 minutes deadline & to produce test reports,
When we had the entire known participants list that had come we started discussions and after some time Pradeep Soundararajan took initiative of starting an exercise. We were asked to split up among the participants in the fashion we had seated. So teams formed with 4 members.Each team had one laptop. We were asked to test Microsoft Calculator. My team included Dhanasekar S, Myself,Nitin Purswani and Santhosh Tuppad-is the one who took control of the laptop where we performed tests which included everyone test ideas. However the ultimate control was with Sathosh since he owned a laptop :) While we were testing Pradeep offered us drink and he got a drink for each of us. Finally, we got 10 new bugs of existing-successful-Microsoft product [Wait, no matter of being proud this wasn’t a competition this was an exercise- This was the instruction from the facilitator]. We were asked to stop testing as the end of 15th minute as the time got over.

Quick Evaluation,
Pradeep Soundararajan started evaluating our reports and asked us questions about strategy – team work, individual contributions to the team and more. He was evaluating based on our answers and our reports and many other criteria. Q&A session extended to 4 hours of highlighting traps,
Common Traps from the teams were,
-We did not ask any question before testing,
-We did not have a planned strategy,
-We did not check whether Microsoft Calculator had known issues in Google,
-We just jumped onto testing,
-We just listed bugs, however we did not take notes and our observations,
-We did not question, what kind-of bug report does Pradeep expect?


Quick Learning
Normally, we think that 15 minutes won't be sufficient to raise these above valid questions to get sufficient answers. But during those 15 minutes everyone answered 'Yes' to Pradeep Soundararajan when he questioned ''Guys I wish to sponsor drinks, who would like to opt for it?''. So it is not the time factor. It is we who jump on to testing without questioning about the test activity. I remember the real-time-test-deadlines and our assertiveness to react to such critical deadline. Altogether every bit of information was valuable and had lots of learning & fun at the end of the summit

Dear Chennai testers, Is there some initiative happening at our end like this for chennai tester's? something like Chennai Testers Meet-up#. If so let me know about it.OR if I see any volunteers who would like to be a part of it, we can try implementing in Chennai- If you're one among us, who are ready to learn,share and keep on learning.

If you want to take part in Bangalore Testers Meet-up# contact @santhoshst or @xploresqa in twitter.

Thanks you for spending valuable time,
Shiva Mathivanan.

Testing mentors in limelight

I recently met so many experienced test engineers and testers, who are not with engineering background but with different streams of science & math in India. To my surprise most of them aren't aware of neither the context driven school of testing nor the heuristic aspects of testing in general.

‘Ah what does that mean?’ I can sense your interrogative look too, continue reading :)

The most “senior test engineers” or “QA professionals”, in whatsoever designation a ‘software tester (a hominid who tests software products) would like him to be identified, have just learnt how to survive in their jobs, by building test metrics, test case designing, test case execution, test automation, bug reports, traceability matrix, test reports, etc; driven fundamentally based on SDLC & STLC, for days, months & years. Though these testers pertain to be successful testers, they lack the essence of sustaining in this craft for longer period. Why is it so?
It is because, they have been practicing testing just because to uphold their jobs particularly in recession times. Although most of these experienced manual and automation testers in India, who claim they acquire 10+ and more years of experience, are into this craft of testing ONLY either by strange coincidence or by choice and NOT by Interest. So fundamentally they are reluctant to share their knowledge, ideas even to their co-tester, despite of generating teamwork cohesion. Typically, this implies a preservation of nothing.

The outcome of this attitude will conduct a tester to think & preach to his co-testers as follows:

• Testing is monotonous
• Testing has lesser scope to learn & earn.
• Testing is not challenging as programming.
• Testing is a dumb activity, if worked in the same domain for 3+ years.
• Testing is theoretical, the one who mug up the definitions can clear interviews easily to get bunch of job offers.
• Testing is a battle field with programmer. Programmer's always battles with the tester, who injects defects on his code, be prepared. *caution to tester, by senior tester.
• Testing is a dependent job, always should depend on the programmer & release engineering team.
• Testing consumes more time, not even 30% of development time is provided for testing. However, they expect 100% test coverage that too in tight deadlines.
• Testing is reiterative activity, feeling exasperated beyond endurance.
• Testing is__________________________________________

You can spend invaluable time in virtually filling you’re preserved pessimistic thoughts in your mind, If you had already been advocating the same to your co-testers, programmers & managers.

When you saw the blank straight line after the words 'Testing is" have you had a question in your mind that 'why it's left blank'? Before reading the next line of sentences?
If so, it's good continue reading... If not practice the art of questioning!

From the blog reader, mind’s- Hey, come-on Shiva Mathivanan, you have been cursing me for so long, you were just highlighting the traditional flaws, misapprehension, ambiguous definitions in testing crafts.
How can you prove that I’m wrong? I bet if you prove it will help me to understand where we mutually stand. And also tell us what is context driven school of testing, what's heuristics all about and how is it going to benefit me in this testing craft, how can I be more passionate towards testing?. (Yes, I can hear you)

Shiva Mathivanan - Good question: I can very well prove what you desire. However, I would like you to read what my mentors have already told about testing. Read through my mentor’s views; start contributing to the testing arenas where my mentors participate. I’m sure that your testing genes will regenerate better (like how normal hormonal genes hyper when a hot girl/boy passer-by *wit*) and you will be a self motivated tester soon, someday.

I’m honored to introduce my great testing mentors. I have chosen them as guru in my testing religion is because I have understood their sensible talks, views, approaches and reliable service to testing community. I always have wondered, how limelight testers & mentors like James Bach, Cem Kaner, Michael Bolton & , Jerry Weinberg have never got tired of rendering their service to this software testing community, while most of the Indian testing geeks in various parts of the globe still in obscurity?

To bring the change, I welcome you all to read my mentor’s view:
1. Dr.Cem Kaner, Software Engineering Professor– http://kaner.com
2. James Bach, Principal Staisfice.Inc – http://www.satisfice.com
3. Jerry Weinberg, consultant - http://www.geraldmweinberg.com
4. Michael Bolton, http://www.developsense.com
5. Pradeep Soundararajan, Test consultant - http://testertested.blogspot.com

My dear blog reader’s you too will be the Ekalavya of above testing genius, some day if you ensure realization of their context. Get into the habit of writing blogs, Get to know why good software testers should write blogs by Pradeep Soundararajan. Pradeep is a exceptional Indian, who never set back to consult, coach and serve as prelude to Indian testing community.


The after effects of testers who reads my mentor's blog:

• Exploratory testing is what I have been doing, but never to this extent.
• Rapid software testing is WOW.
• I'm proud to be a sapient tester, rather identified as manual tester.
• To be a tester is a blessing, I enjoy everyday test activities.
• Developer versus Tester a win-win kaizen to build quality into the product.
• I started blogging my test experience, sharing thereby learning more.
• I understood how to question a product in order to evaluate it - James Bach.
• My approach towards testing has refined a lot.
• My confidence boosted, I can be a successful independent test consultant in future.

Who knows some day, someone like me will be highlighting your views to rest of the testing world, like how I showered my tribute. All the best!

Evaluate you're testing experience, how was testing? by www.vettanna.com
Thank you for spending valuable time!
Shiva Mathivanan