Sign or fine – the modern British way to deal with problems.  A large amount of council investment is in signs, which they believe is the best way to address modern problems such as anti-social behaviour, smoking, littering, what the green man on pedestrian crossing actually denotes, etc.  Now in London we have CCTV cars going round – sinister looking beetle shaped cars whose primary directive is to enforce sign orders, and gain revenue from fining people who generally dont cause trouble.  It could be a fear element – i.e. civil servants – from policemen to noise pollution officers choose to fight their battles from their desks – rather than in any kind of public forum.  

The amount of warning and information signs beggars belief, especially given the lack of actual directional signs in London. And if any driver needs to be told to be careful in a built-up area, or that they shouldnt juggle their mobile phones whilst steering a tonne of metal at the same time with one hand, shouldnt be in a car.  It appears a large proportion of civil service spending is on signs for idiots and lazy people, with fines applied wherever possible (but not reasonable). 

But given the level of policing and monitoring how on earth can they enforce it?  Thats where the camera cars come in, and I am sure this is thin edge of the wedge. What we have now is a government that fail at final hurdles every time – legislation is discussed/approved, then local council leap into action creating signs telling people, then fining people who ignore the all important signs. The cameras are there not to cut crime (unsolved crime is on the increase), but to enforce penalties.  As the majority of people are going about their work and other daily business, without a balaclava or a hoodie on, then these are the people that are ultimately victims of this system.

• ssh root@domain.com
• cd /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/
• wget http://wordpress.org/latest.zip
• unzip latest.zip
• cp -rf ./wordpress/* ./
• mysql -uusername -ppassword
• create database dbname
• grant usage on *.* to username@localhost identified by ‘password’
• grant all privileges on dbname.* to username@localhost
• mv wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php
• vi ./wp-config.php

I have some domain names for sale

• easystoragespace.com
• redfishbluefish.co.uk
• self-storage.in
• testwith.us

Contact us for more details or to submit an offer

A very nice test plugin (and easier to comprehend and use that Selenium IDE), this robust plugin easily enables basic automated front end testing. And easy use of CSV file to apply data to your recorded test scripts. Knowledge of scripting is helpful – there are no automated test tools that can be presented to a complete novice, but boning up a little on scripting will really enable you to outlier this tool to its potential. There is not too much difference to other similar browser plugins – what always draws me to one rather than another is usability and stability.

Look at this video guide – it will explain the concepts pretty well (using the very useful CSV mapping feature as theme).

Usability is beginning to get treated like a constant software update – I was recently asked how current my usability QA Management was.  If February this years isn’t, then I would have to start laughing.  Standards aren’t software updates – why this perception exists is basic misunderstanding of what web usablity is about (it is a huge area of testing), combined with middle management keenness to turn everything possible into a buzzword, a marketing tool to senior management – we do it differently, we do it right.  If only.  Usability encompasses primarily front-end tests in user exepreince, web accessibility (the oft forgottten) coding standards, design heuristics.  Back-end tests include load testing based on user stories (scenarios) to simulate an realistic load.

Understanding the audience is a first consideration, but this shouldnt be barrier for adopting a more flexible approach – no company should be arrogant enough to think they know everything about their marketing demographic.

Web Accessibility is overlooked, but a sizeable proportion of a web audience is affected by simple things such as colour. It’s estimated that one in 12 men and one in 200 women have some form of colour blindness (Source: IEE). You can check how Internet users with different strains of colour blindness are viewing your website with Vischeck.  Other people who may access your website that have disadvantages include:

1. Some epileptic users who must always be careful to avoid seeing flickering between 2 and 55 Hz
2. Web users from outside your industry who may not understand industry jargon or acronyms
3. Web users whose first language is not English and who may not be able to comprehend complicated language

I get suprising resistance to standards, but in a way not – its almost akin to schoolboy/girl obstinacy.   Observing the well defined standards can really prevent basic problems, and code quality is important for maintenance, performance and cross-device/browser friendliness.  This alone would improve a sites overall usability.  Now this is where usability gets larger – functionality – often excluded in a usablity remit plan, but ludicrous.   Poor functionality = poor usability.

This highlights a problem with testing still – the way managers, with little knowlege of project lifecycle, refactor/rework testing principles for aims other than doing things right – or worse, in misguided belief they are doing the right thing.  Testing/QA is a skill, like any other IT discipline.  Agile/SCRUM impacted this further with large degree of woolliness of QA and Project Management.  The reliance is heavily on rounded skilled developers – which are minority.  Although Agile/SCRUM focus on requirements, largely project management is left out of equation.  Managment feel confidence that there are daily meetings (though largely these are run ineffectively), but I have seen a lot of damage created at these meetings.  Usually too long, too few people, and sometimes overly detailed.  It should be an account of work done, current work impediments.  All other discussions should be offline, and only concern relevant people.  There is no point on holding work up, because two people decide o descend into a database schema argument.

I mention Agile/SCRUM because these environments can allow usability to be part and parcel of development.  The rapid dev/test turnaround can easily incorporate standards checks.  And if the Agile philosophy is applied correctly on user stories and Product Manager input from the client perspective this will keep the expected user experience on track.

Somewhere along the line in web development (late 1990’s at a guess), design was firmly decoupled from development. Then as design tools became more complex, design incorporated development of its own. This was right and proper, and in keeping with traditional software development – frontend and backend. But what we ended up with are designers who are poor coders, but expected to do that work by default. While perfection is impossible to achieve, a small amount of coding from a designer, can wreck a lot of a website’s aim, i.e. quality. Running most websites through coding standards checkers highlights the main problems.

1. Sloppy coding (missing Alt tags still irritatingly common).
2. Adopting the latest development options without considering backwards compatibility.

Point 1. is a very common guilt, including myself. It is to do with attitude – on this site, I employ a constant reasonning of “I will do it later”. Fair enough for a blog site, though I chide myself that by employing this attitude I am creating accessibility and usability issues I harp on about in a professional QA capacity. As I also develop, I do have a more sympathetic and pragmatic approach that most QA people. Designers and developers are usually overworked, so my argument is that this kind of clean-up work should at least be prioritized and scheduled. A more sensitive scenario however is that the designer in question is not sufficently skilled enough to really understand what the problems are, and hence will just repeat them.

It is not job of contract staff to point out weaknesses in development – it can simply look “bitchy”. However, testing can be an easy scapegoat for a management and development, so how can you protect your corner? Pushing the case for enforcing standards. The more chaotic the development, the easier it is to sell this case. As a minimum released code to conform to XHTML Transitional, CSS 2.1 and WCAG Level A.  These are versions that I currently consider to be safe for most OS/Browser combinations AND (perhaps more importantly) maintainable.  That is not expecting too much.  But just passing it once is not enough, the checks should be run for every release.  Anyone who resists this is plain lazy, or plain doesn’t understand even the basics of good web development.   Good design is all well and good, but not if it causes problems for large sections of your audience.

After watching a frustrating Question Time, it seems this country’s leaders have learnt no lessons. When Piers Morgan appears to be only person talking sense, that is a big cause of worry! We still primarily look after people who do nothing, whatever the reason. For a long time now workers have felt at the thin end of the edge – self-employed people even more so, thanks to Labour creating an air of mistrust of anyone operating this way.

We should look after the weak and the sick, not the greedy, the stupid and the lazy. I am tired of pumping money into a system that largely wastes money. We are still being ripped off and lied to. Banks received so much support, yet none of that public financial support has filtered down. How much more are we going to take before we start storming the government building and banks? I am starting to feel I would like to be at the front, complete with Wat Tyler-style pitchfork!

I saw your CV on [Jobserve/Jobsite/Monster/Linkedin etc] ….

I am bored, and trying to fill my day by searching cv’s, and contacting people in vague hope I will get a lead, or at the very least polish up my sales talk.

So what is [Enter technology/buzzword/acronym here] ….

I am too lazy to use google, and frankly have no expertise in area I am hiring for.   Hence why I try to pronounce SQL as “Squirrel” and  Agile as “Aggile”.

We have a number of roles we are recruiting for in [enter location/sector relevant to cv in front of agent]

We, along with every other agency, have a number of roles to fill at any one time, but we need some decent cv’s to get a look in.

Oh, I know a few people from people there – who did you work with?  Do you know [enter made-up name here]? No?  Then who did you work with down there?

I am not interested in finding you work, I just lied about the opportunity that was available.  I just want to get some easy access to people in your previous companies, and in doing so annoy your previous employers.

We will need a reference before we can put your forward for this [fantasy] position

As above …

We pay on monthly invoices and you will be paid within 1-2 weeks after that.

We dont have enough float to pay you in decent time frame, even though we are earning commission from you.   We have no hope of paying you on time, unless the company we are resourcing for pays us on time.

We don’t give out our commission rate

We take too much, and also ignorant of the law.

Agile testing does not emphasize rigidly defined testing procedures, but rather focuses on testing iteratively against newly developed code until quality is achieved from an end customer’s perspective. In other words, the emphasis is shifted from “testers as quality police” to something more like “entire project team working toward demonstrable quality.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_testing

I can only speak for UK here, but I am sure my experience is not uncommon.  Largely companies are incapable of applying Agile methodology is anything but a short-term fashion.  And even then apply in wrongly, drowning themselves in agile tools (built by and for “tools”).  Agile software is big business, but largely useless.  That is not what Agile is about, and its interesting that only Selenium seems to be associated with Agile, in terms of test automation.  Agile was about cutting through the red tape, inspiring developers, giving end clients something half resembling what they want, and most importantly allowing all project members to contribute and suggest.  This only works if your Agile team is competent, but in the UK we suffer particularly from the Peter Principle – many managers exist who shouldn’t be there.  With Agile the Product Owner is usually a distant figure (commonly having other roles to perform), and development is largely left to its own devices.  A more pragmatic approach (given the woolliness of UK management) is to adopt SCRUM more fully.

SCRUM is child of Agile, and very focussed on the development/test cycle.   As the role of project manager is becoming role that people shy away from, all manner of project structure can arise  – sometimes bizarre.   Developers can be very independent – if they don’t have, or are not given direction, they will find one.  Then if the ineffective managers take um-bridge to this usurping of authority they react in peculiar way.  They make the direction decisions.  Agile attracts the lazy managers who are simply looking to the top.  Eradicate these useless individuals by taking charge of a project with an effective PROJECT MANAGER.  Every project needs a “buck-stops-here” lead.  Product Owners are effective for requirements, but to leave them in the daily development pit is madness.   Project Manager, Development Team, Development/Test Manager and Tester(s).  OK, I am rewriting the rules a little – but as I have been stuck in Agile world for some time, I feel my opinion is wholly valid.  Agile has become a smokescreen, a tool people use not to develop good software, by develop their own selfish paths (regardless of damage).  Age should not be a team barrier, but anyone refusing to evolve with technology and methodology should be given marching orders.  And, contrary to our bizarre hiring/firing culture, incompetence has no place on an Agile project, and can be very damaging to overall effort.