Software Testing Psychology

The Mindset That You Should Consider Focusing on to Get a Job in Quality Assurance

The tester’s mindset should be different from the developer’s mindset. Generally speaking, programmers are quite capable of testing both their own code and the functionality of the system they are working on. But testing is not done in vain by independent experts – people tend to misjudge the results of their own work.

Independence is a Must in Software Quality Assurance

Therefore, a tester with a certain degree of independence will almost always be more efficient in finding defects and failures in the system than a programmer. Here it is necessary to make a reservation that independence cannot be a substitute for knowledge – certain tasks are much easier and faster for programmers to complete, for example, to conduct unit testing, which requires an understanding of the internal structure of a program. This can all be learned in our software quality assurance course and QA automation training.

In total, there are four levels of independence for Software Quality Assurance – from low to high:

1. tests for the program are developed and conducted by the person who is its author;
2. tests are designed and executed by other people (for example, another developer);
3. tests are developed by representatives of another organizational group (for example, from the testing department) or specialized testers (for example, performance or security testers);
4. tests are developed and performed by specialists from another organization (for example, outsourcing or audit).

Work Requirements for Software Testing

By virtue of their activity, testers are engaged in evaluating other people’s work, finding flaws in it, which is often perceived as destructive activity, despite the fact that it results in correcting errors and improving the overall quality of the product. A good tester must have a number of personal and professional qualities: they must be curious, critical, attentive to details, communicative, maintain professional pessimism, and have sufficient experience to make assumptions about possible sources of errors.

A tester, unlike a programmer whose main goal is to create a working product, must be able to find all the flaws inherent in this product. To do this, we must first of all concentrate on what can go wrong. Research has shown that if a person testing a program perceives it to be working correctly, they will find fewer bugs than someone who believes it has many flaws. That is why, the tester should always keep in mind that “Software has bugs”.

And lastly: when writing a bug report, be objective and in no case indicate explicitly or implicitly the culprit, even if they deserve it. Remember, you still have to work with programmers, do not spoil your relationship.

Simple ways to improve communication with colleagues:

– remember that all of you are working on one project and are moving towards the same goal – creating a high-quality and in-demand product;

– use neutral tone when describing the results of your work, focus on facts;

– put yourself in the shoes of other people and try to understand the reasons for their behavior;

– always make sure that you and the other person understand each other.