Do You See What I See?

Every now and then my team and I will find ourselves talking about something completely unexpected and off the wall.  Recently, a couple of team members and I somehow got on the topic of eyesight, and how bad our prescriptions were.

Bob had a -2 prescription.

“That’s nothing!”, I said.  ”I have -5 and -6!”.

A little jaw-dropping ensued, with comments around how seriously compressed my lenses were.  And yes, that combined with a bad astigmatism means my glasses cost a small fortune.

Needless to say, I was surprised when Mark piped in with “My prescription is -10!”. He wears contacts though, which cost half what I have to pay.  Horrible eyesight, but somehow easier on the wallet.

We quickly start to share experiences with optometrists, and then what can we see without our glasses or contacts on.  There were a number of comparison points to which we all had different results, such as:

• How far away can you ready something like font 36 text?
• How close do you hold a book to read it?
• How abstract a painting would you create without wearing glasses/contacts?
• How long does it take for your eyes to focus on something together?

The answers and differences aren’t particularly important here.  They did lead to some information though:  Our perspectives, as a result of our eyesight, were different.   Well, we already knew that our perspectives were different, so this wasn’t earth shattering by any means. It was an interesting reframing and reminder though.

Having had a good connecting conversation over similarities and differences, we move to get back to work. Then Mark commented, “I used to tell my optometrist that if I look through only my left eye vs. only my right eye, I see a different colour cast over objects.  He said that wasn’t possible.  No one has that.”

I whip my head around, and exclaim “No way!  Me too!”.

It turns out he has been thinking he’s a weirdo in some way, as per the optometrist his experience with the difference in colour-cast is something that isn’t possible.  He feels much better that there is someone else who experiences the same thing.

As for me, I thought all these years that this was normal, so I never brought it up with anyone before. Now I wonder why I didn’t.

As we are both experienced software testers, this is a bit amusing to us.  I was able to derive a few important reminders for things to do (and not to do) as software testers based on this conversation.

Learning #1:  If you know something is true, don’t let anyone convince you it isn’t.  Depending on the situation, find ways to convince them, or let it go (here is a great discussion point on when to do which).

• Mark was told that something he saw was not possible.
• He knew it was not true, but thought maybe it was just him.
• After a little insistence, he didn’t do much more with it.

Software testers experience this a lot!  How many times have you seen an unusual software defect that no one else can reproduce or see?  And then you were told that you didn’t really see it, you must have imagined it!  Knowing that you really did see that defect, what do you do?!

a)  Just leave it alone – you don’t want to upset anyone.  Maybe they were right.

b) Agree to disagree, but vow that you will do further investigation to prove that the defect is real.

c) Discuss the defect with the developer, show them the information you have to support your claim, and agree that you will work together to nail this issue down and get it resolved.  Getting to this point means that the developer trusts you – this is a very good thing!

I hope you pick option c in most situations.  It is important as testers that we are able to gain developers’ trust so they take the defects we report as valid issues, and work together to nail down those elusive ones.  You are a team after all!

Learning #2: Never assume that what you see is seen by everyone else – you may have experienced something unusual that is important.

• I assumed that something I saw was expected, even though I thought it was odd.
• I assumed that most everyone saw the same thing.
• So, I never told anyone about what I saw.

a) It doesn’t seem worth reporting on – so don’t!  Reasons:  It must already be logged, it must be a known issue as it’s so obvious, my expectations are incorrect so it must not be an issue, nobody ever fixes the bugs I report anyway, and so on,…

b) Discuss what you saw with a team member or developer to confirm whether it is a bug or not.

c) Report the bug straight away, every time!

In this case, option b is the better choice in most situations.  Checking with someone who may have more information than you about the feature, or building consensus with others as to whether something is a bug are quite valuable mechanisms for making this decision.  Work as a team to save time and effort on bug processes!

Learning #3:  Two or more people that seem to have experienced the same thing, didn’t.  Every experience is unique, and each person has different information to share about it.

• Mark sees different colour-casts looking through each eye separately.
• I see different colour-casts looking through each eye separately.
• We must see the same thing!

a) Compare and contrast your experiences, and see how they line up… are all characteristics for the experience in the ’same’ column, or are there differences?

b) Reproduce the issue on the software together, at the same time, on the same system.  In other words, paired testing!

c) Assume that the experience was the same end-to-end, and report the issue jointly.

In my experience, I would suggest option b.  It is important to try to reproduce the issue together to ensure the same steps were taken, with the same inputs, which resulted in the same outputs, and watching the same screen/hardware, at the same time.  The only caveat is that even by doing this, you still won’t have the same experience!  Everyone’s brains work differently and will notice different things (which is one of the reasons why paired testing can be valuable).  It is still a valuable approach regardless.

…

Now here is your chance to think up other alternatives for the learnings above – I know they are out there!  You do see things differently than I, after all.  :)  Another good thought-exercise is what other learnings could come from the conversation noted above?  In any situation, a multitude of learnings can be derived for every person exposed to it.  I could think of a few more off the top of my head, but I won’t.  Take this as an opportunity to see what other ways you could view the experiences.  I would love to hear what you come up with!