In Two Minds

Jerry Weinberg's definition of quality is well known. It is generally applied to encapsulate a relationship between a person and a product, at a particular time, and goes like this:

Quality is value to some person

It is intended to be a practical tool, and I think Weinberg would agree with something like this as a gloss for it: theoretical assessments of quality — perceived quality — are less important than those which are motivated by action. For example, a property is worth what someone actually pays for it. Without the action, it's just philosophy. What someone is willing to pay, or sacrifice, determines the quality (to them) at that moment.

I've thought about this definition a lot over the years. In particular I've found myself speculating about the granularity of the definition. Back in 2012 I was wondering whether it was interesting to consider quality in terms of the aggregation of a set of qualities; more recently I was thinking about the way that product quality and its effect on quality of life might be interesting; and just now I've been worrying away at the possibility of holding conflicting views of the quality of a product at the same time.

Although there are numerous examples in Weinberg's work of multiple people with differing opinions of a product at once, I haven't found any where a single person has that. Here's one relevant extract, from Quality Software Management volume 1, page 5:

For different persons, the same product will generally have different "quality," as in the case of my niece's word processor. My [complaint about a bug not being fixed] is resolved once I recognize that to [my niece], the people involved were her readers; and to [the word processor developer], the people involved were the majority of his customers.

One of the things I find intriguing is that the definition, and its common usage, together seem to suggest that a person is only able to assert or demonstrate or alter their assessment of the quality of a product at certain times: when they pay for the product, and when they are making use of the product. So I tried some thought experiments.

In the first, I imagined that I might be in a position to buy a Bentley:

I believe that the build standards of a Bentley are much higher than cheaper cars. I will pay more for higher build standard. This is a measure of value. As quality is value, I think the car is high quality.
I believe I would get no extra benefit from a Bentley over some other cheaper car, given how I use my car. So I won't pay a high price for a Bentley. This is a measure of value. As quality is value, I think the car is low quality.

And then I reflected:

I feel that I can hold these kinds of opposing views at the same time without problem (at least in some cases).
I speculate that quality can be a relationship between a person and product-attribute rather than a product.
My examples are couched in terms of belief rather than actual knowledge (I have never even sat in a Bentley)
... so to Weinberg I've really I've got a statement about perceived value, if anything, here.
Perhaps related, quality assessment of wants (I'd love a Bentley) could be different to needs (I have to have some personal transport).
Is there always, ultimately, some overriding single attribute of quality that wins out for any given person, at a given time, and so multiple perceived qualities collapse at the point of use into a single assessment?
Or perhaps simultaneity is a false perception here. Maybe I am switching between views — very rapidly — and only hold one at any given time.
Another angle: when I consider two contexts of use, or aspects, or applications of a product, could I really be considering effectively two different products?

I tried another scenario, which attempts to take belief and perception out of the equation by using a more mundane product that I have personal experience of. Let's say I have bought a new pen and I want to use it for two tasks: taking notes while standing up and taking notes while suspended by my feet.

The pen is suitable for the first task and I am very happy with the price I paid. I say this is a good quality pen.
The pen is not suitable for the second task. I had to keep inverting it to let ink run back to the nib end, which I am unwilling to do any longer. I say this is a low quality pen.

More thoughts:

At the point where I pay for my pen, by Weinberg's model, I make an explicit statement about the quality of the pen for me.
Unintuitively, perhaps, if I've never used such a pen before this is based only on my perception of the value the pen will return to me
... so perceived quality can turn into actual quality with no additional evidence to back it up
... and, on engagement with the pen, I might rapidly revise my opinion.
Once I've paid for it, I express my view of the quality of the pen by the extent to which I am prepared to sacrifice to use it
... and (if I understand the model) effectively the only time at which I can express this view is at the point of use
... because at other times I merely express a perception of what I would do when I came to use it
... and so can I change my expression of the quality of the pen without using it?
For example, can I express an opinion on quality by choosing not to use something?
... but then how to distinguish between something that I happen not to use and something that I actively don't use, and something that I use only occasionally but is perfect for a particular task?

And then I stopped and dumped my notes here, after pondering how much I was prepared to sacrifice to continue this particular line of thought at this time.
Image: https://flic.kr/p/B7gwWJ

With thanks to Jerry for patiently listening to me trying to make some kind of argument along these lines in email, and then patiently declining to agree. And also to Šime for prompting more thoughts when I was going round in circles.

Edit: Simon Morley followed up his comments on this post with Quality-Value: Heuristic or Oracle?

Meet Me Halfway?

The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book, Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide responses to common questions and statements about testing from a context-driven perspective . It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter , LinkedIn , Mastodon , Slack , and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me? --00-- "Stop answering my questions with questions." Sure, I can do that. In return, please stop asking me questions so open to interpretation that any answ...

The Best Programmer Dan Knows

I was pairing with my friend Vernon at work last week, on a tool I've been developing. He was smiling broadly as I talked him through what I'd done because we've been here before. The tool facilitates a task that's time-consuming, inefficient, error-prone, tiresome, and important to get right. Vern knows that those kinds of factors trigger me to change or build something, and that's why he was struggling not to laugh out loud. He held himself together and asked a bunch of sensible questions about the need, the desired outcome, and the approach I'd taken. Then he mentioned a talk by Daniel Terhorst-North, called The Best Programmer I Know, and said that much of it paralleled what he sees me doing. It was my turn to laugh then, because I am not a good programmer, and I thought he knew that already. What I do accept, though, is that I am focussed on the value that programs can give, and getting some of that value as early as possible. He sent me a link to the ta...

Beginning Sketchnoting

In September 2017 I attended Ian Johnson 's visual note-taking workshop at DDD East Anglia . For the rest of the day I made sketchnotes, including during Karo Stoltzenburg 's talk on exploratory testing for developers (sketch below), and since then I've been doing it on a regular basis. Karo recently asked whether I'd do a Team Eating (the Linguamatics brown bag lunch thing) on sketchnoting. I did, and this post captures some of what I said. Beginning sketchnoting, then. There's two sides to that: I still regard myself as a beginner at it, and today I'll give you some encouragement and some tips based on my experience, to begin sketchnoting for yourselves. I spend an enormous amount of time in situations where I find it helpful to take notes: testing, talking to colleagues about a problem, reading, 1-1 meetings, project meetings, workshops, conferences, and, and, and, and I could go on. I've long been interested in the approaches I've evol...

How do I Test AI?

Recently a few people have asked me how I test AI. I'm happy to share my experiences, but I frame the question more broadly, perhaps something like this: what kinds of things do I consider when testing systems with artificial intelligence components . I freestyled liberally the first time I answered but when the question came up again I thought I'd write a few bullets to help me remember key things. This post is the latest iteration of that list. Caveats: I'm not an expert; what you see below is a reminder of things to pick up on during conversations so it's quite minimal; it's also messy; it's absolutely not a guide or a set of best practices; each point should be applied in context; the categories are very rough; it's certainly not complete. Also note that I work with teams who really know what they're doing on the domain, tech, and medical safety fronts and some of the things listed here are things they'd typically do some or all of. Testing ...

Don't Know? Find Out!

In What We Know We Don't Know , Hillel Wayne crisply summarises a handful of research findings about software development, describes how the research is carried out and reviewed and how he explores it, and contrasts those evidence-based results with the pronouncements of charismatic thought leaders. He also notes how and why this kind of research is hard in the software world. I won't pull much from the talk because I want to encourage you to watch it. Go on, it's reasonably short, it's comprehensible for me at 1.25x, and you can skip the section on Domain-Driven Design (the talk was at DDD Europe) if that's not your bag. Let me just give the same example that he opens with: research shows that most code reviews focus more on the first file presented to reviewers rather than the most important file in the eye of the developer. What we should learn: flag the starting and other critical files to receive more productive reviews. You never even thought about that possi...

My Adidas

If you've met me anywhere outside of a wedding or funeral, a snowy day, or a muddy field in the last 20 years you'll have seen me in Adidas Superstar trainers. But why? This post is for April Cools' Club . --00-- I'm the butt of many jokes in our house, but not having a good memory features prominently amongst them. See also being bald ("do you need a hat, Dad?"), wearing jeans that have elastane in them (they're very comfy but "oh look, he's got the jeggings on again!"), and finding joy in contorted puns ("no-one's laughing except you, you know that, right?") Which is why it's interesting that I have a very strong, if admittedly not complete, memory of the first time I heard Run DMC. Raising Hell , their third album, was released in the UK in May 1986 and I bought it pretty much immediately after hearing it on the evening show on Radio 1, probably presented by Janice Long, ...

Not a Happy Place

A few months ago I stopped having therapy because I felt I had stabilised myself enough to navigate life without it. For the time being, anyway. I'm sure the counselling helped me but I couldn't tell you how and I've chosen not to look deeply into it. For someone who is usually pretty analytical this is perhaps an interesting decision but I knew that I didn't want to be second-guessing my counsellor, Sue, or mentally cross-referencing stuff that I'd researched while we were talking. And talk was what we mostly did, with Sue suggesting hardly any specific tools for me to try. One that she did recommend was finding a happy place to visualise, somewhere that I could be out of the moment for a moment to calm disruptive thoughts. (Something like this .) Surprisingly, I found that I couldn't conjure anywhere up inside my head. That's when I realised that I've always had difficulty seeing with my mind's eye but never called it out. If I try to imagine ev...

Going Underground

The map is not the territory. You've heard this before and I've quoted it before . The longer quote (due to Alfred Korzybski) from which the snappy soundbite originated adds some valuable context: A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness. I was thinking about that this week as I came to a product new to me but quite mature with a very rich set of configuration options. When I say rich , I mean — without casting any shade, because I have been there and understand — it is set in multiple locations, has extensive potential effects, and is often difficult to understand. For my current project I consider it crucial to get a non-shallow view of how this works and so I began to explore. While there is some limited documentation it is, as so often, not up to date so mostly I worked in the codebases. Yes, plural, because this product spans multiple r...

Notes on Testing Notes

Ben Dowen pinged me and others on Twitter last week , asking for "a nice concise resource to link to for a blog post - about taking good Testing notes." I didn't have one so I thought I'd write a few words on how I'm doing it at the moment for my work at Ada Health, alongside Ben. You may have read previously that I use a script to upload Markdown-based text files to Confluence . Here's the template that I start from: # Date + Title # Mission # Summary WIP! # Notes Then I fill out what I plan to do. The Mission can be as high or low level as I want it to be. Sometimes, if deeper context might be valuable I'll add a Background subsection to it. I don't fill in the Summary section until the end. It's a high-level overview of what I did, what I found, risks identified, value provided, and so on. Between the Mission and Summary I hope that a reader can see what I initially intended and what actually...

Heads Up

I tell you what: of all the things I might've expected to see on the first slide at Quality Jam London 2017 , my own professional-work-photo-grinning, shiny-pated, blue-tinted face peering back down at me from behind a massive Thank You! wasn't it. Expectations are grist to the working tester's mill, yet also often the bane of their lives. Tony Bruce , in Manual Testing is Dead. Long Live Manual Testing , called for testers to set the expectations of the people that they interact with. The term "manual testing" undersells what testing is, or can be, with its connotations of manual labour, unthinking monotony, apparent separation from (woo! sexy!) automation and the historical association with scripted test cases. For Bruce, testing is "the pursuit of information" but he doesn't necessarily rush into meetings spouting from that kind of lexicon (although he's singing my kind of song right there). Instead he promotes the use of PAC (purpos...

Hiccupps

Search This Blog