On 31.12.2009, at 06:16, Scott Morrison wrote: > Send out mockups, same interaction movies etc to get discussion happening.
That's a very good suggestion. Particularly usability tests don't necessarily need a working application. Creating a UI mockup in IB or Photoshop (or both) and describing it (e.g. on Mac-GUI-Dev, see link in my signature) and soliciting feedback can be very helpful. > You will also get testers who are better contributors to design and testers > who are better contributors for filing bug reports. make as much use as you > can of both of them. And use them in the test phase that best suits their strengths. > You will always get beta test attrition and people who are not the best > testers but you will get a small % (10-20% maybe) who are gems/dedicated > testers who make a significant contribution . Mind you, that's talking about volunteers. While even professional QA guys probably get bored with their job occasionally, or have a bad day, additional management is involved with volunteers to keep them happy and interested, and account for non-volunteer work taking time away from testing. > and it rubs me the wrong way when a user solicits me for a license in > exchange for beta testing. While, as a developer, I think every tester deserves a free license at the least, there are many people who think signing up for betas is an easy way to get free licenses without doing anything (heck, I have a friend who shocked me by expressing that opinion). If someone comes with that proposal, I'd suggest only giving them a license if you'd have given them one even if they'd just said "I can't afford it, can I have a freebie?". If they do some testing, that's a benefit, but don't expect it. Also keep in mind that, sometimes, life gets in the way, or the tester sees that the app doesn't do what she expected it to do and finds herself not using it. So you might have handed out a license, made a good impression on a potential future customer, but it's not used. Nothing lost, good PR gained. Cheers, -- Uli Kusterer "The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..." http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mac-gui-dev/
