Typing is a untold skill that is pretty much universal skill for anyone to master. Be it development or manual testing. Often testers are required to document the test plan before testing. During discussions with the developer there could be a lot of information to take in. Jotting down with blazing fast fingers comes handy. Recently I came across a testing of a rewamp of an architecture. With 0 experience in old nor the new one it was a lot to take in during the explanation of developer. My typing skills gave me a hand to quickly take down some edge cases, important information, configurations, etc...during my KT(knowledge training). The points noted were not in their best structure for anyone other than me to understand. I later elaborated the written snippets of information which was very useful to write my plan and testcases later. It also helped me to clarify something that even the developer himself did not have any context about.
It starts from having a typing routine. Most of us type with with 4-6 fingers. To type fast it is highly recommended to use all the 10 fingers and also 15 minutes of typing for 30 days straight will show a considerable amount of improvement as touch typing will increase the speed of our fingers and whatever the mind thinks will aready in the screen without being counsiously searching and typing each keys in the keyboard. These are some websites that help in practising typing:
My personal preferrence for someone who is starting out is Keybr touch typing starts with easy letters at first and it increases as we hit a considerable amount of speed. On signing in, our progress could be easily tracked and also helps in motivation to type faster. Keybr doesn't have punctuation and numbers to practise, hence on completely typing all the letters switching to monkey type is recommended to practise real word senario typing with punctuations and number. Since we already have experince in touch typing it will be easy to get hang on punctuations and numbers easily. It is not about the tool we use but it is mainly about turning up everyday to spend some time in typing which will leverage the skills of documenting the tests.
To know more on documentations in testing I would recommend reading these:
- The Importance of Documentation in Software Testing: What to Document and Why
- Boosting Testing Efficiency with Obsidian: A Tester’s Documentation Journey
Communication is directly proportional to better testing efficiency. There is nothing very important non-tech skill that will be very handy not just for testing but also for any jobs in tech. Testers need to communicate to developers so often to discuss bugs detected and also edge cases. It is even more challenging to comunicate through written messages when someone is working from home. It is important to overshare during written communication, so that there will be more information that will give more context to what exactly needs to be shared. I will be discussing some online tools to take communication to next level so that a lot of huddles(audio/video call facility in slack) can be reduced.
Screenshots and video snippets are amazing ways to show a bug or demonstrate a feature without waiting for both the party to make time for a meeting. These tools help in creating screen records and send it via
I can't stress more on documentation. If it is an established company or a growing startup documentation is very essential to know on how the product or feature is tested. Documentation not only helps new users to know about how testing happens in the company but also these documentations in offline can be a great warehouse of knowledge that travels with you forever. know more here and here.
Sometimes it is easy to use a voice message than a chat. This Idea was given by my company's co-founder, were he prefers voice message over chat as he doen't want to waste time in typing. Chat requires a lot of work to draft one because:
- need to think a lot to draft a message that is more informative and less
- takes time to type it out.
- takes even more time to check grammar and spelling mistake.
- more prone to ambiguity due to unchecked spelling. Lot many chatting services have the voice chat feature that could be very much useful and comes in handy to quickly reply.
I know your voice sucks to hear🙉, But its definitely worth it.
Underrated but a worthy non-tech skill that is often overlooked. A curious tester not only is better in finding defects in the product or service. By asking questions and seeking to understand how things work, It also helps in identify areas that may be prone to defects and issues. In the startup I work I get to know more about the architecture itself during my testing phase. Being in a microservice architecture, I have visibility into the applications that are interconnected with the service I am currently testing. I tend to learn more about diferent application and even the point of failure of the application.
Curiosity to ask the developer for edgecases can save time in figuring out the edgecaases ourselves. This doesn't mean exploring of edgecases ends there. These edgecases help to leverage the skills of testing similar senarios that may arise in the future.
Especially in a startup environment curiosity will give you a ton of knowledge and tools to test better and faster. Checkout a tool I use for documentation here and more tools are on its way!
Being curious means not just questioning whatever comes to mind; it is advised to self-analyze the question beforehand so that it benefits and does not waste your time or the time of others in the process. Using AI tools like ChatGPT to learn a little before hand can also help to understand what is someone is saying. Being an intern or fresher allows you to ask trivial doubts without the fear of judgment or being perceived as lacking knowledge.
The desire to explore every nook and cranny of the software can lead to spending excessive time on certain areas, potentially causing delays in overall testing progress. While curiosity can be beneficial in uncovering additional issues, it can also result in scope creep and a misalignment with project timelines and objectives. It's important to balance your curiosity with a rational and methodical approach to ensure unbiased testing and accurate reporting of issues.