Testing for Non Programmers

Question

I would like to get my younger brother, who can't program, to test some code I am writing from requirements I provide him in documentation. Is there a way to get him going quickly? Ideas?

Please and thank you.

Answer 1

I'd recommend just doing black box testing. There are three ways I'd recommend of doing so. First is to let him just mess around with the software without telling him the requirements and see what breaks the program. The second is to write a script for him to follow covering various use cases. The last is to give him a task to perform and let him figure out how to do it himself. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

Advantage of the first: Lets someone who doesn't know how the software is supposed to be used do things that you didn't anticipate. You might not think that this is important, but users can do some really weird/bad stuff.

Disadvantage of the first: Since you're not telling him the requirements of the software, you don't know exactly what he's doing so you need to more strictly observe what's happening.

Advantage of the second: You are testing the requirements directly and know what is being tested.

Disadvantage of the second: You are only testing what you can think to. This doesn't account for users doing something you did not expect.

Advantage of the third: You are seeing what a user might do when confronted with the software and seeing how well it works with those combinations. You're also getting some usability data on your software as well (I'm assuming this is primarily for usability testing since this type of study was required for that course)

Disadvantage of the third: He doesn't do any tasks you don't tell him to and you have to strictly observe what he's doing to see when something is going wrong or when he's having trouble completing a task.

Answer 2

If you want him to do Unit testing, that's not that trivial thing for a non-programmer to do. But he can "play with program, push the buttons, etc." One doesn't have to be a programmer, to do this type of testing.

Answer 3

Could you use a unit testing framework (nunit etc)? They're more reliable than little brothers :-)

Answer 4

If you're talking about manual end user testing, I asked a question on stackoverflow which might be helpful.

Where can I find a good beginners guide to user testing?

Answer 5

Since you brother can't program I am gathering you are approaching this from an end-to-end testing stance. With this being the case your brother should be able to exercise your application with the documentation. If he is unable to exercise your application based on your documentation then your documentation is inadequate.

Have him plan varying paths through the application after he gets an elementary feel for the application based on your documentation. Have him then write tests accordingly and execute them; providing you the results for review.

Step 1 - Open application
Step 2 - Click blue button (should see blue dialog appear)

One caveat with this approach...his definition of a bug will be anything un-expected since there will be no formal requirements to go on. Is that wrong? Not necessarily, but be careful when stating that that was the intent when perhaps the intent is wrong and needs adjustment.