The Elements of UXD in My QA and Testing Stints

My stint in software quality assurance and testing is perhaps the closest I got to experiencing how users would feel when using the products that I tested.

While trying to stay true and within the boundaries of a test analyst’s mandate of testing, that is to test according to specifications and requirements, there had been occasions when I raised issues on usability and user friendliness. For example:

• The error messages in an EFTPOS device are technical that even a support person would have to refer to a user manual or to a developer.
• Lacking information on a web portal due to no specifications of its inclusion, which I argued lead to users committing mistakes.
• Breaks in the continuity of usage in applications that would derail or deter users from continuing their tasks.

While my QA experience spanned different testing techniques such as white-box, black-box, functional, system, alpha and beta, performance, smoke and sanity, and regression, I’d incorporated techniques that are useful in UX such as scenario-based use cases, interacting with the behavior of the system, content testing, and abnormal testing that trigger different errors and error messages.

In the UXD realm where I see myself going, I want to be able to facilitate usability testing where I can observe and apply my QA and testing knowledge.