6种方式测试人员可以增加价值（功能测试除外）

目录

Summary摘要:

内容

1. Review every message 查看每条消息

2. Perform a UX review 执行用户体验审查

3. Do a competitor analysis 做竞争对手分析

4. Look for opportunities for tooling 寻找工具化的机会

5. Think of risks that could cause ‘nightmare headlines’ 想想可能导致“噩梦般的头条新闻”的风险

6. Spend time with the customer support team 花时间与客户支持团队合作

作者

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Summary摘要:

Many testers spend their time doing functional testing and don't come out of this cocoon. But software testing is all about discovering quality-related information to assist stakeholders in making informed decisions, and there are multiple ways to discover information in addition to functional testing. Here are six actions that will help you add more value to your projects.

许多测试人员花时间进行功能测试，并没有从这个茧中走出来。 但软件测试的全部意义在于发现与质量相关的信息，以帮助利益相关者做出明智的决策，除功能测试外，还有多种方法可以发现信息。 以下六个操作将帮助您为项目增加更多价值。

内容

Even with the increased adoption of automation, functional testing holds its importance. Most software applications need to be tested by humans in order to validate and investigate each feature and their interactions.

即使自动化的采用越来越多，功能测试也很重要。 大多数软件应用程序需要由人类进行测试，以验证和调查每个功能及其相互作用。

Unfortunately, many testers spend their time doing functional testing and do not come out of this cocoon. The reasons could be lack of skills, not knowing how to code, fear of the unknown, or limited knowledge of the testing landscape.

不幸的是，许多测试人员花时间进行功能测试，并没有从这个茧中走出来。 原因可能是缺乏技能，不知道如何编码，对未知的恐惧，或对测试环境的有限了解。

Paraphrasing Cem Kaner, software testing is all about discovering quality-related information to assist stakeholders in making informed decisions. There are multiple ways to discover information in addition to functional testing. Here are six actions that have helped me add more value in my projects.

修改Cem Kaner，软件测试就是发现与质量相关的信息，以帮助利益相关者做出明智的决策。 除功能测试外，还有多种方法可以发现信息。 以下六个操作帮助我在项目中增加了更多价值。

1. Review every message 查看每条消息

Testers usually go through the requirements documents, have a discussion with the stakeholders, and then design their tests to be executed on the product. But we all know that there are multiple scenarios that don’t get covered by the test cases and still crop up during usage. Most of them get covered by the development team, but some of them are a surprise to everyone.

测试人员通常会查看需求文档，与利益相关者进行讨论，然后设计他们要在产品上执行的测试。 但我们都知道，有多种情况不会被测试用例覆盖，并且在使用过程中仍然会出现。 他们中的大多数都被开发团队所覆盖，但其中一些对每个人来说都是一个惊喜。

The development team can help by making a list of all the messages coded into the product, including the error, info, and warning messages. This also acts as a good check of the test coverage in terms of messages displayed by the system. If the test team has never seen a message that is going to be displayed to the user, the team can then go back and understand which scenarios would display the message.

开发团队可以通过列出产品编码的所有消息（包括错误，信息和警告消息）来提供帮助。 这也可以很好地检查系统显示的消息的测试覆盖率。 如果测试团队从未看到过要向用户显示的消息，则团队可以返回并了解哪些方案将显示该消息。

Once when I received the list of strings, I immediately noticed that an entire section of strings were totally new to the testing team. On reviewing, we discovered that it was from legacy code, and even though we no longer supported that feature, we had some part of the code committed. It should have been removed, as there was no impact on the product.

有一次，当我收到字符串列表时，我立即注意到整个字符串对测试团队来说都是全新的。 在审核时，我们发现它来自遗留代码，即使我们不再支持该功能，我们也提交了部分代码。 它本应被删除，因为对产品没有影响。

Based on the application and how it is built, it might be easy or difficult to get the list ready. But if you think of this exercise as a way to help the testing team test better, the stakeholders should agree on finding a way to get the list of messages ready. Going forward, try this approach and get a reality check on your product understanding and test coverage.

根据应用程序及其构建方式，可能很容易或很难准备好列表。 但是，如果您将此练习视为帮助测试团队更好地测试的一种方式，那么利益相关者应该同意找到一种方法来准备好消息列表。 展望未来，尝试这种方法，并对您的产品理解和测试覆盖率进行实际检查。

2. Perform a UX review 执行用户体验审查

Many product teams build fast and then think of stabilizing the code after reaching a set of customers or a certain growth metric. In the initial phase, releasing quickly generally takes precedence over releasing right. As multiple developers get involved, there might be a high chance of inconsistency creeping in.

许多产品团队快速构建，然后考虑在达到一组客户或某个增长指标后稳定代码。 在初始阶段，快速释放通常优先于释放权利。 随着多个开发人员的参与，可能会出现不一致的可能性。

In the process of stabilizing the product, focus on getting rid of any UX inconsistency. Perform a UX review of the whole application. Start with icons, text, actions, features, and key flows and bring in personas and the thought process to perform a full UX review. Also think of the touchpoints for the users. How are you handling them? Are there any garden paths in your application? There are exercises to help test your UI skill set at https://cantunsee.space/.

在稳定产品的过程中，专注于摆脱任何UX不一致。 对整个应用程序执行UX审核。 从图标，文本，操作，功能和关键流程开始，引入人物角色和思维过程以执行完整的用户体验审核。 还要考虑用户的接触点。 你是如何处理它们的？ 您的申请中是否有任何花园小径？ 有一些练习可以帮助您测试您的UI技能集，网址为https://cantunsee.space/。

When we performed the UX review within our company for a highly used product, we found patterns of inconsistency and could easily relate them to the different decisions we took as a team—releasing a feature in a hurry, feature development outsourced to a different team, features with outdated plugins, and so on.

当我们在公司内部对高度使用的产品进行用户体验审核时，我们发现了不一致的模式，并且很容易将它们与我们作为团队所做的不同决策联系起来 - 匆忙发布功能，将功能开发外包给不同的团队， 具有过时插件的功能，等等。

3. Do a competitor analysis 做竞争对手分析

It’s a shame that a lot of testers are stuck in silos and have no clue about other companies’ products. Read about your competition through fact sheets, web seminars, demos, media news, and blog posts, and then list the features and analyze the strengths and weaknesses against your own product.

令人遗憾的是，许多测试人员陷入了孤岛，对其他公司的产品一无所知。 通过情况说明书，网络研讨会，演示，媒体新闻和博客文章了解您的竞争对手，然后列出功能并分析您自己产品的优缺点。

Check with your product teams about if you can get access to other companies’ offerings, and ask how you can assist in competitor analysis. When performing a competitor analysis, focus on multiple quality criteria like usability, performance, security, and accessibility in addition to functionality. A simple dashboard highlighting who scores better across the features and criteria could be handy.

请咨询您的产品团队，了解您是否可以访问其他公司的产品，并询问如何协助竞争对手的分析。 在执行竞争对手分析时，除了功能之外，还要关注可用性，性能，安全性和可访问性等多个质量标准。 一个简单的仪表板突出显示谁在功能和标准方面得分更高可能很方便。

4. Look for opportunities for tooling 寻找工具化的机会

Tools are a boon for those who know how to use them effectively. They can save a lot of money and time, and complement testing to a large extent. As a tester, you should have a wide knowledge of the systems involved and the processes being followed.

对于那些知道如何有效使用它们的人来说，工具是一种福音。 它们可以节省大量的金钱和时间，并在很大程度上补充测试。 作为测试人员，您应该对所涉及的系统和所遵循的过程有广泛的了解

Apart from automating functional checks and using tools to create test data quickly, there are other ways you can use tools, like detecting patterns across logs, replicating production data, mocking functions, taking backup of certain user actions, and triggering actions based on rules. It is also not necessary to buy proprietary tools to achieve most end goals. It could be a simple hundred-line program that takes a screenshot of the application based on a trigger in the log.

除了自动执行功能检查和使用工具快速创建测试数据之外，还有其他方法可以使用工具，例如检测日志模式，复制生产数据，模拟功能，备份某些用户操作以及根据规则触发操作。 也没有必要购买专有工具来实现大多数最终目标。 它可能是一个简单的百行程序，它根据日志中的触发器截取应用程序的屏幕截图。

Sometimes it might not be obvious to everyone how useful certain tools are to do a particular activity until you demonstrate the value, so look out for such opportunities.

有时，在您展示价值之前，某些工具对特定活动的有用程度可能并不明显，因此请留意这些机会。

5. Think of risks that could cause ‘nightmare headlines’ 想想可能导致“噩梦般的头条新闻”的风险

As described in the book Explore It! Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing, by Elisabeth Hendrickson, one way to prevent disaster is to think of possible bad news headlines related to your product or project and test for those risks. Testers are good at thinking of probable disaster scenarios, and this skill can help the development team avoid such bugs while writing code, saving time and effort up front.

正如书中探讨的那样！ Elisabeth Hendrickson通过探索性测试降低风险并增强信心，防止灾难的一种方法是考虑与您的产品或项目相关的可能的坏消息标题并测试这些风险。 测试人员善于考虑可能的灾难情景，这种技能可以帮助开发团队在编写代码时避免此类错误，从而节省时间和精力。

This would be a fun game to play with multiple stakeholders, and it gives everyone confidence that risks are taken care of. When we conducted this game with one of our teams, some headlines thought up by tech support and management team gave a different perspective to the testing team—we would have never thought of those tests without this nudge.

这将是一个与多个利益相关者一起玩的有趣游戏，它让每个人都相信风险得到了解决。 当我们与我们的一个团队进行这个游戏时，技术支持和管理团队的一些头条新闻给测试团队提供了不同的视角 - 如果没有这个推动，我们就不会想到那些测试。

6. Spend time with the customer support team 花时间与客户支持团队合作

Due to continuous usage of their product, the testing team might be biased toward certain behaviors. But what appears to be an expected feature to testers might actually be a burden for users. You can listen to customer support calls to learn about customers’ pains and confusion using your application.

由于产品的持续使用，测试团队可能会偏向某些行为。 但对于测试人员来说，似乎是预期的功能可能实际上是用户的负担。 您可以使用应用程序收听客户支持电话，了解客户的痛苦和困惑。

For one of our products, when we complained about a feature and its usability, the bug was rejected. When multiple customers started complaining about similar usability issues, they were fixed with high priority. This experience gave us a lot of credibility in the organization, and we were later invited to multiple discussions about usability decisions.

对于我们的某个产品，当我们抱怨某个功能及其可用性时，该错误被拒绝了。 当多个客户开始抱怨类似的可用性问题时，它们被高优先级修复。 这种经历在组织中给了我们很大的信誉，后来我们被邀请参与有关可用性决策的多次讨论。

The customer’s voice is the real data you should be paying attention to, and you can use this data to advocate for making a difference in your product.

客户的声音是您应该关注的真实数据，您可以使用这些数据来倡导改变您的产品。

These six actions can be easily combined with functional testing, and they add an immense amount of value. Try out these tasks in your testing work and let us know your experiences.

这六个动作可以很容易地与功能测试结合起来，并且它们增加了巨大的价值。 在测试工作中尝试这些任务，并告诉我们您的体验。

作者

Ajay Balamurugadas, goes by the handle ‘ajay184f’ in the testing community and is continuously re-inventing his testing methodology. He co-founded Weekend Testing - a worldwide movement for skilled testing, authored six small books under the theme "What If" downloadable at his blog http://EnjoyTesting.blogspot.com. His latest book is available at www.leanpub.com/50mistakes. His friends associate the terms - 'Change Agent, Idea Man, Motivational' to him. He tweets under @ajay184f and loves to have long conversations on software testing and life in general.

Ajay Balamurugadas，在测试社区中使用句柄'ajay184f'，并不断重新发明他的测试方法。 他共同创办了Weekend Testing--一个全球性的熟练测试运动，在他的博客http://EnjoyTesting.blogspot.com上以“What If”为主题撰写了六本小书。 他的最新着作可在www.leanpub.com/50mistakes上找到。 他的朋友将这些术语 - “改变代理人，创意人，激励”与他联系起来。 他在@ ajay184f下发推文，喜欢在软件测试和生活方面进行长时间的对话。