This was originally posted as a LinkedIn Post and got some good traction and input from the testing community. I am converting this to a blog post now:
Not Everyone can Test ✅
Rahul Parwal
Why? Check below 👇
1. Not everyone likes to ask questions.
2. Not everyone likes to be in a socially difficult position.
3. Not everyone likes to advocate for bugs, & risks.
4. Not everyone likes to think pessimistically.
5. Not everyone likes to think of different user personas and edge cases.
6. Not everyone likes to explore any given application and its parts.
7. Not everyone likes to question and doubt assumptions.
8. Not everyone likes to live in a real world filled with real problems. Fairy castles are soo damn beautiful and easy to think of.
9. Not everyone likes to be vocal about the customer’s pain points.
10. Not everyone likes to think beyond simple fact checks.
In the comments, Michael Bolton added some more reasons too:
- Not everyone can test enthusiastically or even happily.
- Not everyone is given sufficient incentives to test deeply.
- Not everyone is sufficiently committed to testing to test well.
- Not everyone has sufficient empathy to test well.
- Not everyone has a sufficient focus on finding problems to test.
- Not everyone is able to perform every aspect of testing well.
- Not everyone has sufficient technical skills to test well.
- Not everyone has sufficient critical distance from the technology to test well.
- Not everyone has sufficient access to testing tools to test well.
- Not everyone is able to defocus from testing tools to testing well.
- Not everyone is willing to immerse themselves in the user’s world to test well.
- Not everyone is empowered to immerse themselves in the user’s world to test well.
- Not everyone understands that testing involves more than output checking.
- Not everyone understands that quick, inexpensive testing might be all that’s needed at some point in time.
- Not everyone is working in an environment where testing is honored.
- Not everyone is willing to have awkward conversations, or to speak the truth to powerful people.
- Not everyone is willing to study testing.
- Not everyone can test well, and no one can test perfectly.
