The Miro Testing Blog!

The team here at PCF recognizes the importance of testing and the value that it adds to a project. As I continually ask friends, family members and sometimes complete strangers to help out with the testing - I often suspect that people are a bit fearful about diving in.

“I’m not a tester”, “I don’t know how to write code”, “I never tested anything before.” These are some of the phrases that I regularly hear, and once and for all - I just want to say - It doesn’t matter.

In my opinion, anyone can be a tester. All you have to do is try a few things, maybe follow some instructions and report the results.

In order to be a Good tester, there are a few more standards, but perhaps not what you would expect

• Education… is completely irrelevant.
• Programming skills… we leave that up to the developers. One of our biggest concerns is the end user experience. If you, as a non-programmer, have trouble using or understanding Miro, that is a bug. It is preferred that you communicate your finding in a sentence or two.
• Courage… You have to be willing to try. If you find something that you think is a bug, report it or ask someone. Don’t be afraid to be wrong.
• Creativity… Look at what a particular feature does - then think about what else it might do, or could do, or should do. Then think of ways to make it do things that it shouldn’t do. Then, write it down, so someone else can expand on your ideas.
• Diligence… Testing isn’t always fun, and can sometimes be a little repetitious. But those regressions tests need to be run. The more people we have looking at the builds on a regular basis - the better Miro will be for everyone!

So - if you are ready to join us, sign up for the mailing list, or subscribe to this post, and say hello on the irc.