EuroSTAR conference-acid test for your software

Texavi April 1, 2010

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EuroSTAR is a prestigious software testing conference organised every year. This year, it will be held at Copenhagen, Denmark in December, 2010 and I am participating on behalf of Rave Technologies. I will present a real life case study to highlight the importance of comprehensive testing for a software product. The theme of my talk is going to be comprehensive software testing that also involves ‘users’ at regular phases in the software product development cycle. Besides the usual testing such as functional, performance and load testing, I think the real acid test for a software product is the user testing. This completes and consolidates all the other tests, and ensures that the product delivers a complete experience and brings in delight to its users.

When the rubber meets the road

I wish to equate software products and web applications in the ICT industry to cars in the Automobile industry. Recently, there have been a spate of car recalls happening all over the World today. This includes the so-called quality-conscious companies such as Toyota and Honda. I am not an expert on the Auto-industry and so cannot comment on the real reasons behind these increasing recalls. However, as an end user, I presume that perhaps these could be due to the lack of appropriate,sufficient and comprehensive testing. Also, the frequency and intensity with which the tests are carried out makes a significant impact on the quality of the final product. Besides all types of testing that we usually do on a software product or application, we should also perform ‘user testing’ at regular periods in the project timeline. This will help us get closer to the user’s and usage scenarios, their problems and address them before the products actually get in the hands of users.

All you need to do is…

You can find the list of all the 14 videos which are submitted for this conference at the URL given below. Please go through this page, watch video 8 – Pardha Saradhi and vote for it. It is very simple and quick. Hurry up, the voting ends on April 16^th. Every vote counts!

http://www.eurostarconferences.com/content/videostar-competition.aspx

Happy Easter and a long weekend. Ciao!

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