The team needs to build a product. The team readily recognizes the testers need to work with the developers but the same team often doesn’t consider that the testers need to work with the UX staff. Often the UX staff is tucked away in a different part of the office, working with multiple teams and yet, rarely working directly with the testers. Why? How can testers review a product without a good understanding of the design? Testers need closer access to UX and UX designers would benefit from working directly with the testers. Following are 26 ways a tester can work more closely with UX designers – from A to Z.
Accessibility Testing
Accessibility testing is a growing need as more websites and apps are becoming ADA compliant. While ADA compliance can be included on the design, it is only through testing that compliance can be checked. In addition to “checklist” testing, the W3C has an accessibility guide mentions the concept of using a persona with disabilities which inspires a more holistic way to test for accessibility than testing solely with a checklist. Offer to work with your UX designer on the persona and execute testing through a different perspective.
Browsers
As designers layout web pages, they might not be aware of the nuances of page rendering from browser to browser and this is an opportunity for testers to share their experience at the concept phase to ward off issues, as well as to offer access to testing during development.
Be fluent in browser settings and coach your UX designers when they introduce ideas that require specific browser settings or when they make browser assumptions. Browser assumptions – meaning the designer is assuming users are using Chrome with cookies enabled but you know from watching browser stats that your user audience is different – and may prefer Firefox with privacy settings turned on. In fact, you could be reviewing browser stats on an intermittent basis with your designer to make sure you are both aware of the production reality of your site usage.
Content
The expression “content is king” may bring to mind the stark reality that many websites and mobile apps are free but the money is made in charging customers for access to content. While website and app designers are focused on the end user experience, it is in the testing of permission and user roles that we can ensure who can access what (and for that matter – when).
A second well used expression: “content is everywhere” refers to the separation of content and the form being used to display content. Think mobile device versus tablet versus website; think about your site’s content and whether that content is ready to render as it should based on the viewing device and layout. Designers and writers can “tag” content but ultimately, it is in the testing to see how it all really comes together (or not.)
Data
My data, your data, whose data? What can you see? What can you access? Like content, data is what makes a website or app really matter to the user. Screen mockups often show personal information but without test data or occasional production spot checks, how do you know what data is visible? Or how it looks?
Error Handling
While the “works as designed” scenarios may be more fun to design, UX designers (like developers) need to think about troubled situations that may arise and how those conditions will be handled. Have you ever used a graceful application only to face a hideous error message? Offer to preview error messages with your UX designer and to test software such that you see the error conditions evoked.
Forms
So many forms! From shopping carts whether on ecommerce or mcommerce payment is the most essential transaction on many websites and apps. The experience might be well designed but someone has to make sure the financial aspects and the forms of the site or app work and work well.
Gestures
Websites and apps need to function well in addition to the look and feel. Learn what gestures are available and offer to test gestures in collaborations with a UX designer.
Hacker
With security problems being displayed on the front of the news, everyone on a software development team needs to think like a hacker. Be aware of security flaws and help guide your UX designers to be mindful of potential security issues.
Installation
Installation testing is back in the forefront of concerns with mobile and tablet apps. Upgrading one app or many apps at the same time, as well as testing an upgrade to the operating system is needed. Work with UX designers to identify moments during installation for messages to users and like error messages, offer to preview messages.
Jail Broken Devices
Clean and pristine devices might be the ideal used during design but most users’ cell phones are jail broken or rooted and contain a multitude of apps. Testing on a more realistic device is helpful. Perhaps BYOD can help you achieve realistic testing? Help your UX designer by offering BYOD sessions for testing.
Keyboard
If you can navigate your site with just a keyboard – and not the use of a mouse, your site is ADA compliant (that is the only checkpoint). You can test for ADA compliance together.
Localization
Is your site or app suitable for international use? Do you need to test with international keyboards? Does content need to be adapted for global usage? Coordinate with your UX designer to address multi-lingual checks.
Multi-Device Experience
The multi-device experience promised by Apple computer ‘s TV ads shows a person moving from home to office, to the local coffee shop and back again but data synchronization, Wi-Fi access and retrieving information from the cloud is all just a magical promise without testing. A UX designer can dream and design but a tester can road test concepts best.
Navigation
In design, the flow through a shopping e-commerce experience, an e-learning system or even the login process is often designed with the “happy path” in mind and while it is important to think of the “typical” path, it is the tester on the team that can highlight alternate or problem flows that also need to be designed.
Open Lab Time
As the team’s tester you might have access to multiple computers and devices, you can offer to your UX designer open lab times for them to come and view and use software for themselves.
Personalization
It is easy to think about personalization through the mental lens of a single user but what happens to web pages like My Account and My Order History when the user is a longtime customer with pages and pages of history? A tester with access to the database can build account history and then review web pages with a UX designer to do a sanity check of how personalization pages look with deep order history and a variety of interesting past orders.
Quirky scenarios
UX designers may focus on more typical user scenarios but as the team’s tester, you may be able to envision more gnarly or quirky scenarios. Sharing your ideas early on about twists in typical usage paths helps designers plan for the less expected scenarios.
Responsive Web Design
RWD – responsive web design – building in the ability to resize, pan, and scroll all while auto-detecting the way a device is being held or rotated and having that instant fluid presentation takes planning and testing. Work with your UX designer to test on an array of devices to ensure a smooth user experience.
SEO
Search engine optimization and the continual change in search order ranking is an ongoing “art” in the quest for companies and their websites and apps to be “findable.” From glass box testing of the HTML to black box testing of search results, testers can help UX designers.
Target Users
Marketing efforts often rely on A/B testing – providing two different looks of a website to see which is more successful. UX designers design those two layouts and while testing the success of the marketing efforts is a different form of testing, checkpoints workflows and shopping carts regardless of which entry point is used is something testers can coordinate with UX designers.
Usability
Offer to help host and attend UAT sessions your UX designer may host. Once you have a chance to see the software through the user’s perspective, your own testing approach may change.
Versions
Version control and compatibility especially when web services and APIs are in the background and being updated at a variety of times and not always updated and released at the same time. Coordinate with your UX designer to ensure compatibility.
Web Services
Testing what cannot be seen such as web services and APIs is a challenge for people who don’t know how to test what they cannot immediately and directly “see.” Testers can work more closely with developers to provoke or stimulate services that are down or disrupted to test challenge scenarios that designers are dependent on.
XML
Extensible Markup Language defines precise formatting for information and while designers plan for data and information to be available, testers can test those dependencies on data.
Y2K and other dates
Y is a reminder to test with sensitive dates and date formatting that may otherwise “quietly” appear on web pages and confirmation emails.
Zip Files
Browse to file, upload file, drag and drop file and other ways to navigate to files to include, attach and upload files is not the most exciting part of a website but the end result is important to users. Zip files are not the only file types to test with but compressed hefty zip files do provide a reminder to consider boundary conditions.
About the Author
Karen N. Johnson is a software test consultant. She is frequent speaker at conferences. Karen is a contributing author to the book, Beautiful Testing by O’Reilly publishers. She has published numerous articles and blogs about her experiences with software testing. She is the co-founder of the WREST workshop, more information on WREST can be found at: http://www.wrestworkshop.com/Home.html Visit her website at: http://www.karennjohnson.com