Where No-one Else Looks

In yesterday's post, Optimising start of your exploratory testing, Maaret Pyhäjärvi lists anti-patterns she's observed in testers that can lead to shallow outcomes of testing. She ends with this call:

Go find (some of) what the others have missed!

That strikes a chord.

In Toujours Testing I recalled how my young daughter, in her self-appointed role as a Thing Searcher, had asked me how she could find things that no-one else finds. I replied

Look where no-one else looks.

Which made her happy, but also made me happy because that instinctive response externalised something that had previously been internal.

The phrase has stuck, too, and I recall it when I'm working.

It doesn't mean targeting the obscure, although it can mean that.

It also doesn't mean not looking at areas that have previously been covered, although again it can mean that.

More, for me, it is about seeking levels of granularity, or perspectives, or methods of engagement, or personas, or data, or implicit requirements, or potential outcomes, or interactions, or other factors relevant to the system under test in its expected contexts of use that haven't been explored yet.

And then I look for ways to explore them.
Image: https://flic.kr/p/ojiHAS

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