It was a mundane Monday morning in office & so to perk myself up, I just started browsing www.satisfice.com; I opened the People recommendations page which I had missed/skipped last time I was browsing the site. The Title of this page said James Recommends & I found a list of 15 names with a description about each of them.

James Bach had listed a few names which made me reminisce King Akbar & his 9 Jewels or Navratnas.I clicked on the name Mike Kelly & I was like wow!

Mike Kelly’s blog seems to be like a Treasure Island. The categories seemed so interesting & the posts very informative. I was drawn towards the categories Heuristics & I’M an idiot (yeah!!! Sounds familiar isn’t it).
Check out these gems!

Managing focus when doing exploratory testing
Christina (Tina) Zaza’s advice for all of us:
• block off time to test (1 to 2 hours), close out email and IM, and schedule a conference room if needed so people know you’re unavailable
• before you start, open up everything you think you’ll need to do your testing effectively: applications, databases, spreadsheets, tools, etc… — this way you won’t get distracted or slowed down mid testing
• prioritize your tests – she listed three methods she uses:
o faster tests (or quick tests) first
o higher risks tests (or tests more important to the business) first
o group features together to reduce context switching while testing
• don’t stop your testing once you’ve started to write up defects or to ask developers/analysts questions — note them while you test, and then do that after your session is completed

The Hoffman Heuristic: Why not try them all?
Mike Kelly narrates how a small but a very interesting assignment given by James Bach made him reminisce Doug Hoffman’s Heuristic. This heuristic is based on Doug Hoffman’s testing of a massively parallel system

The Pirate Heuristic
Which says , when you run out of ideas – steal someone else’s,Pretty Interesting,what do you say.

Quick Testing Tips update
Which brought me to Quick Testing Tips website.

Coming up with a heuristic
It mentions about the heuristic test strategy by James Bach,Test Reporting Heuristic MCOASTER

Simple tips for testing application navigation
Some simple test ideas that can be pulled from the article include:
* Can you navigate without having to mouseover icons to figure out what’s what? Is it easy to find the link to the home page (or other core areas of your site)?
* Is there a way to distinguish between internal and external links?
* Can you easily open links in the same tab and a new tab? If you open it in the same tab and click back, do you actually go back to where you were?
* Can a user easily tell where they are within the site or application?

The list is endless, I am still reading, why don’t you drop by & join me.

Cheers,
Jassi