A Testing Course with a Difference – “BBST Foundations”

I am blogging after some time gap. One of the things that I did during this break was to do BBST Foundation course. Here I would like to share my experience of this 1 month long course and why I think it would be useful for Indian Software Testing community.

BBST foundation course is a basic introduction to ‘Black Box’ Testing. You can read the details about this course here. This course includes video lectures, quizzes, homework of various kinds, and a final exam. The course is provided Free of Cost for the AST members. So this is a course which is non-commercial in nature and is dedicated for the betterment of the Testing community.

Ideally one should have some Industry experience for taking up this course although it is not mandated. But I would say, for reaping better benefits from the course a Software Tester should have atleast 2-3 years of experience in IT industry.

There were 11 participants in my batch mostly from US, although there were participants from other countries as well. Apart from me, there was one more Indian (Rajkumar Pandian from Chennai) in my batch. The batch began with ‘Meet and Greet’ session where all the Testers had to introduce oneself to the batch. It was really cool and gave all Testers a platform to share their interests and make friends with like-minded testers and other testers in the group. There were Testers with wide range of experience, right from beginner (1 tester) to Testers with 5-7 years experience and also people who have chosen Testing after having experience in different fields. So this a playground where Testers can put forward their point of view, debate, learn from other Testers, learn how Testers work in different geographies, how the challenges differ and their experiences. This is place where your work would be challenged and put under scrutiny by Testers with different set of ideas and expectations, and you will have to defend your work. Your work would also be evaluated by some of the Experts in the Software Testing field who have got decades of experience.

It is really great Fun!! and lots of learning too. I am not sure whether Testers who had appeared for CSTE or ISTQB or other similar exams would have experienced anything close to this. This course had got many ingredients where a Tester’s skills are really put to test and clearing this exam would build a lot of “Credibility” for the Tester within the Testing community.

Having gone through the grind and fun for 1 month of BBST course, I believe this course deserves more recognition from the Indian IT Industry. This course would give the IT industry a better insight about their Testers ability and skills than any CSTE or ISTQB exam can actually give. But for this to happen, I believe more Testers from India will have to take-up this course and share their experience with the Testing community.

Yahoo Mail, Is there a problem here?

I was logging into my yahoo account, when I realized when I had logged in an hour back the home page was different. I thought, the homepage might have been updated? Or was there a difference the way I accessed the Yahoo! Mail home page the last time?
Then upon little investigation, I realized that the last time I had traversed to the home page was in the following way– I went to www.yahoo.com and clicked on the ‘Mail’ option. The second time I had reached homepage through – www.mail.yahoo.com
This got me interested and I wanted to have a quick comparison of the two homepages which had opened. So for discussion sake, I want to use the following conventions -:
Option 1 -: Go to www.yahoo.com and click on ‘Mail’ option
Option 2 -: Go to www.mail.yahoo.com
[NOTE -: Option1 took me to ‘Yahoo! India’ homepage, while Option2 took me to ‘Yahoo! Mail’ default homepage.]

I did a quick round of comparison and following are my observations -:
(i) Option2 (The default ‘Yahoo! Mail’ home page) had a link to go to ‘Yahoo!’ homepage But in Option1 (‘Yahoo! India’ homepage) I couldn’t find any link to traverse to ‘Yahoo!’ homepage.

(ii) I noticed that the Window Title in Option1 showed “Sign in to Yahoo! India” while the Window Title in Option2 showed “Yahoo! Mail: the best web-based mail”. I wondered why Option1 didn’t have ‘Mail’ in their Window title.

So I opened the Yahoo! UK and Canada sites. Oh, there the Window title was “Sign in to Yahoo!”, Country names were not mentioned (although it is mentioned within the respective homepages). So Yahoo! doesn’t seem to have uniformity in naming the Window titles.

(iii) In Option1 (‘Yahoo! India’ homepage) there is an amazing link “Forget your ID or Password?” . Wow!!, it seems Yahoo might want to help its users to Forget their UserID or Password. What an innovative idea?
I had first found similar message a couple of weeks back when I was testing a website during the Finishing School session that Pradeep was conducting. That site was still to go Live, but it could be that they may have picked up the idea from Yahoo!.

Again I got curious, is this message present only in Option1 or is it also available in Option2 ? Luckily, Option2 had “I can’t access my account” link. But here too, Yahoo! doesn’t seem to have uniformity in naming the links. For same functionality it has got different names.

(iv) I decided to move on and have a peek into the ‘Sign Up’ page for both Option1 and Option2. Hey surprise!! , there is another “Forgot your password or Yahoo! Id?” link when entering Sign Up page through Option1 AND you know what, there is a “Forget your password or Yahoo! Id?” when you navigate to Sign Up page through Option2.

First, why do you need “Forgot you password or Yahoo! Id” within the Registration page? May be because if the user cannot see this link on the homepage, he could dig into the Registration page and find this option. Highly probable!!.

Second, even for people entering Yahoo! site by Option2 have a chance to ‘Forget their password or Yahoo Id’ by going to the Registration page. Good, why should the people using Option1 have all the fun alone?

(v) Finally l had a look at the ‘Security Question’ for both Option1 and Option2 and interestingly there were different set of Security questions asked. Why is it so? Once again I got curious and looked into Yahoo! UK and Canada sites and found that those sites have got exactly the same set of Security questions which is available from Option2 -> ‘Registration Page’. So probably Yahoo! Might have come up with special set of questions for Indian users.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The intention of this post is to demonstrate that if anyone wants to practice testing, he can begin with almost any application he can get. I have nothing personal against Yahoo!, it is just my observations which I have listed here. And maybe, Yahoo! has got its own reasons for implementing things the way they are.

The title of this post is inspired from Ben Simo’s ‘Is There A Problem Here?’ blog.

Testing FreeMind - SBT2

CHARTER
-----------------------------------------------
File' Menu Tour and explore the functionalities in 'File' Menu.

#AREAS
FreeMind
Build 0.8.1
OS Vista Home Basic
Strategy Exploration & Analysis

START
-----------------------------------------------
26/03/09 06:10am

TESTER
-----------------------------------------------
M.V. Manoj

TASK BREAKDOWN
-----------------------------------------------
#DURATION
medium 65 mins

.#TEST DESIGN AND EXECUTION
100
#BUG INVESTIGATION AND REPORTING
0
#SESSION SETUP
0
#CHARTER VS. OPPORTUNITY
100/0


DATA FILES
-----------------------------------------------
#NA

TEST NOTES
-----------------------------------------------
#1. File
- New
- Open...
- Save
- Save As...
- Revert
- Create Encrypted Map
- Close
- Export
- Import
- Page Setup...
- Print...
- Most Recent Files
- Quit

#2. Tried all short cut options given within File Menu, they are working fine.

#3. New / Open / Save ./ Save As ... is working properly

#4. Revert -> moves the Map to last saved state.

#5. Close / Quit / Most recent Files working properly.

#6. Need to look into following observations(Potential Defects) in 'Print dialog' to confirm -:
(i) On Print dialog, Print Range -> Pages, values '1 to 9999' is set by default irrespective of no.of pages in the Map.
(ii)On Print Dialog, Print Range -> Pages, One of the boundaries for Pages are '0' and '9999'; but number entry is restricted to 5 digits. Why not restricted to 4 digits when '9999' is max.
(iii)On Print Dialog, Page Range -> Pages, the 'To' field accepts blank. Why so?

#7. Couldn't test Import and Export functionalities as I need to know more about 'Branches', 'Linked Branch' and 'root'.

#8. Upon clickin on 'Page Setup' -> 'Print Scaling' dialog opens. I suspect it is not working. - Testing further, 'Print zoom factor' for which range is given as (0.0 - 2.00) is taking any value upto 5 digits. It is also taking alphabets. - 'Print Scaling' is accepting the value and implementing the scale if the range is given between 0.00 to 2.00. Values beyond this range it is neglecting.

#9. Click on 'Create Encrypted Map ...' , if the password is short it gives out a message box. 'too' is misspelt as 'to' in the msg.

#10. Click on 'Create Encrypted Map ...' , opens a "Choose password for encrypted node" dialog. Not sure whether encryption can be done at node level or can also be done at Map level too. Also noted discripency between functionality name and dialog title.

#11. Once I have encrypted a node, I am not asked for 'password' when I try to edit or add siblings and the lock remains. How the node can be decrypted, will have to figure out. (Need to investigate if this is a Issue)

-------------------------------------------------
Issues
-------------------------------------------------

#1. Presses on 'Alt' + alphabets, there are only two shortcuts for Top Menus ('Alt + F' -> File and 'Alt + M' -> Map). Other Top Menus doesn't have Shortcut Keys.

#2. Open a Saved Map, add child nodes etc. and click on 'Revert' from File Menu. It takes the Map to last saved state but it changes the Mode to Browse. Upon going back to MindMap mode, the Map is in closed state and one has to re-open the Map for further working.

#3. Clickin on 'Page Setup' -> 'Print Scaling', 'Print zoom factor' for which range is given as (0.0 - 2.00) is taking upto 99999 (5 digit values). It is also taking alphabets. But it is neglecting any inputs outside the range 0.0 to 2.00. Then why allow users to input values outside the range.

Testing FreeMind - SBT1

CHARTER
-----------------------------------------------
Create a test coverage outline and risk list for FreeMind v0.8.1

#AREAS
FreeMind
Build 0.8.1
OS Vista Home Basic
Strategy Exploration & Analysis

START
-----------------------------------------------
25/03/09 06:25am

TESTER
-----------------------------------------------
M.V. Manoj

TASK BREAKDOWN
-----------------------------------------------
#DURATION
short (45 mins)
#TEST DESIGN AND EXECUTION
100
#BUG INVESTIGATION AND REPORTING
0
#SESSION SETUP
0
#CHARTER VS. OPPORTUNITY
100/0

DATA FILES
-----------------------------------------------
#NA

TEST NOTES
-----------------------------------------------
I did a walkthrough of Help and Index, to come up with my own TOC for exploration in further SBTMs :

- Help is displayed as a Mind Map, (seems it is easier to understand than sequential TOCs)

Node Features
- Appearance
- Folding
- Followable Links
- Multiline Notes
- Emulate labelled edges
- Icons
- Clouds
- Graphical Links
- Hyperlinks

- Create and Deleting Nodes (Sibling and Child Nodes)
- Editing Node text
- Formatting a node
- Using Physical Styles
- Searching

- Dragging and Dropping
- Copy / Paste
- Moving around
- Folding/ Unfolding
- Changing to Different Map,

- Scrolling the Map
- Using Undo
- Export HTML / XML / Bitmap or vector

- Importing Folder Structure
- IE Favourites
- Minmanager X5 mind map

- Integration with Word or Outlook
- Setting Prefrences- Printing

- Using Rich Text by means of HTML in nodes
- Picture in Nodes- experimental file locking

- Table of Key Mappings
- Installation
- Browsing files in your computer, mind maps- About modes

-----------------------------------------------
ISSUES
-----------------------------------------------
#ISSUE1 - In Intro it is mentioned that this documentation is for FreeMind 0.8.0 , not sure if it is same for v 0.8.1 as it is also mentioned that "Keyboard mappings and positions of Functions in menu can change from version to version."

#ISSUE2 - Couldn't find a 'Search' option. In Help Menu the 'Help' option is disabled and only 'Documentation' is enabled.

Testing FreeMind 1

CHARTER

-----------------------------------------------

Create a test coverage outline and risk list for FreeMind v0.8.1


#AREAS

FreeMind

OS Vista Home Basic

Build 0.8.1

Strategy Exploration & Analysis


START

-----------------------------------------------

25/03/09 06:25am


TESTER

-----------------------------------------------

M.V. Manoj


TASK BREAKDOWN

-----------------------------------------------

#DURATION

short (45 mins)

#TEST DESIGN AND EXECUTION

100

#BUG INVESTIGATION AND REPORTING

0

#SESSION SETUP

0

#CHARTER VS. OPPORTUNITY

100/0


DATA FILES

-----------------------------------------------

#NA
TEST NOTES

-----------------------------------------------

I did a walkthrough of Help and Index, to come up with my own TOC for exploration in further SBTMs :
- Help is displayed as a Mind Map, (seems it is easier to understand than sequential TOCs)
- Node Features

- Appearance

- Folding

- Followable Links

- Multiline Notes

- Emulate labelled edges

- Icons

- Clouds

- Graphical Links

- Hyperlinks
- Create and Deleting Nodes (Sibling and Child Nodes)- Editing Node text- Formatting a node- Using Physical Styles- Searching
- Dragging and Dropping- Copy / Paste- Moving around- Folding/ Unfolding- Changing to Different Map,
- Scrolling the Map- Using Undo- Export HTML / XML / Bitmap or vector
- Importing Folder Structure- IE Favourites- Minmanager X5 mind map
- Integration with Word or Outlook- Setting Prefrences- Printing
- Using Rich Text by means of HTML in nodes- Picture in Nodes- experimental file locking
- Table of Key Mappings- Installation- Browsing files in your computer, mind maps- About modes

-----------------------------------------------
ISSUES-----------------------------------------------#ISSUEIn Intro it is mentioned that this documentation is for FreeMind 0.8.0 , not sure if it is same for v 0.8.1 as it is also mentioned that "Keyboard mappings and positions of Functions in menu can change from version to version."
#ISSUECouldn't find a 'Search' option in help.

Session Based Testing 1

Hereon I plan to post the Test Notes of the “Session Based Testing” of various applications that I Test - which helps me to learn and develop Test Ideas which I can use as heuristics while testing other applications. Here is the first of the series.

===================

Product -: Wordsearch Creator V 0.9
Product Link -: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wsc/
Environment -: Windows Vista Home Basic, 32 bit OS
Tester -: M.V. Manoj
Start Date/Time -: 17/03/09 , 00.00 am

Charter/Mission -: To find out as many problems as possible that could influence the stakeholders to consider fixing all the bugs I report in order to improve the quality of the product.

#1. I am testing this product for the first time and I found that upon clicking the Help Contents, I am directed to http://openforschools.co.uk/wordsearchcreator/doc/0.9 But since at present I don’t have Internet connection, I would have to do without Help and learn/test by exploring the application. But then why a desktop application would require/mandate a user to have internet connection?

#2. Because of lack of Internet connectivity, I am unable to search the Internet to see if I can get any info or reviews about Wordsearch Creator OR similar applications.

#3. I launched 150 instances of the application. In task manager I can see that upon opening multiple instances there is a large variation in the memory usage of Wordsearch creator and it varied from 804K to 7424K. This large variations of memory usage could be a potential problem. I can’t see a reason when the user might have to open so many instances simaltaneously, so why not restrict the number of instances to one at a time?

#4. The multiple instances did not have any numbering on them, so upon cascading I could not identify in which order the application instances were launched.

#5. Close all the 150 instances in one go -> Close Group. Application closed gracefully.

#6. The ‘Control Box’ -> Height and Width fields have a lower boundary of ‘1’ each and an upper boundary of ‘99’ when I used the scroll bars. When I provided the value ‘99’ to both height & width fields it made the squares to go out of bounds of the page. The squares should not go beyond bounds of the page, whatever a user does.

#7. I was able to save the Out of Bounds page Results as ‘.PDF’ and as ‘.wordsearch’

#8. Upon providing 276496 in the Word List and clicking on create , a message ‘Only 0 words placed’ message is shown (scrnshot aval).

#9. When I copied entire A-Z in one line - multiple times and clicked on create. A message box with “Creating Wordsearch” blocks the screen and doesn’t return the result until I stopped the search.

#10. Once the grid is created even if you modify your Word List, the New answers are not displayed. i.e. After create, modify word list does not work and you have to recreate the grid to include the new wordlist.

#11. (Menu) Wordsearch à ‘Set allowed directions’ seems to be working fine in all directions. I tried a few tests and it passed.

#12. Cntrl++ does not work for Zoom In.

#13. If the grid goes out of bound of the page, Wordsearch à ‘Maskdrawer’ has problems, it also goes out of bounds and ‘Done’ cannot be obtained.

#14. Menu Options, ‘File’ and ‘Format’ has been given the same Shortcut Key ‘F’. “Alt + F” opens ‘File’. So ‘Format’ doesn’t have shortcut key.

#15. Wordsearch -> ‘Copy as Image’ works fine and passed few tests I ran.

#16. WordSearch à ‘Word List Creator’ generates the same list as many times as we click on ‘Generate List’ button. When I clicked on OK, I found that this list gets appended to ‘Control Box’ à ‘Word List’ rather than overwriting the existing list.

#17. The dialogs that comes up upon clicking the Menu options doesn’t have proper naming conventions. Wordsearch à ‘Set Allowed Directions’ –Opens- ‘Set Word Directions’ dialog. Similarly, Wordsearch -> ‘Mask Drawer’ –Opens- ‘Word Search Creator’ dialog.

#18. ** *Test Ideas Used ***
- Try to open multiple instances of the application and look if multiple instances makes any sense?
- Open lots of instances and find the memory usage pattern of the application.
- Learn by the application behaviour, the inputs and output patterns
- Try to identify the boundaries of the grid/word list
- Menu Traversal to learn the functionalities provided. Open and look at the functionalities.
- Check if short cut keys are functioning properly.
- Check the word search application with different font and colors.
- Check the title of the dialog boxes in the application.
- Check the completed grid with only answers, only word list and with both.
- Check the various directions in which search can be done.
- Check the export and import functionalities.

---End Session -: 2:22 am-----

Testing as a Team Sport

If an entire Product Development is considered to be a Team Sport (say Football), what would be Testing team’s role in it? What are the things that a Testing team can adopt from Football?

Let’s consider the case when a Football Team is playing for a win. There is an entire Team who has the common objective (mission) to win the game. The only way to win the Game is by scoring goals and conceding lesser goals than what you have scored. This doesn't mean that every player in the team is trying to score goals. The Coach draws out a Game-plan to achieve the mission. Players in the team are given certain specific tasks like goal-keeping, defending the goal, controlling mid-field and there would be usually 2 strikers whose responsibility is to score goals. The combined effort of each of these roles is required if a team has to win the game. And there would be times when the coach has to redraw the game-plan according to the situation and find the best tactics to achieve the mission. The success of the Team depends on whether the players in the team know what to do when they get the ball. The task of goal-keeper when he receives the ball would be different from what the defender has to do when he gets the ball or even different from what the striker have to do when he gets the ball.

Similarly in a Product Development the Project Management draws out the game-plan. Then tasks are assigned to the respective Development and Testing teams. The combined mission of Development and Testing team is Successful Release of the Product. Both these teams will have their individual missions too which would ultimately ensure the combined mission is achieved.

The mission of the Testing team is to provide quality related information to the Stake Holders (who would be part of Management) and to facilitate them to take decisions. The Testing effort may still be broken further into sub-groups like UI Testing group, Function testing group, Installation Testing group, Database testing group etc. The Test Plan provides the game-plan as to what all things the Testing team would be responsible for (what all Testing would be done and what are the deliverables), what are the resources available and dates for completion of these tasks are provided. The Test Lead would be the captain who will marshal the resources and the coach would be the Test Manager who would ensure that the mission is on track and take decisions like altering the game-plan etc. The Testers would fill in for the various roles that the Manager provides him based on the Testers skill-sets. The success of Testing efforts depends on whether the Tester knows when they have received the ball, what should they do once they receive the ball. It also depends on how well each Tester has played his role and what information they have provided to the Management. Was the information provided by Testers help the Management to take decisions like - whether the product has matured enough to be released OR would some changes be made to the game-plan and take out the alternate game-plan?

Disclaimer : All contents in this article are my personal views.