Episode 8
· 44:27
Everybody, and welcome back to the Vernon Richards Show. You know what the best thing about you, whatever, is you just did Chris, edited it out completely. So whatever you just scream down, the microphone burn in.
Vernon:All I did was I I did the whole fake cheering. So I went, yeah. You probably can't hear it.
Richard:She did it again.
Vernon:Yeah. Yeah.
Richard:So Vernon, how are you, using AI in your life at the moment? So So for those not watching the video, Vernon was trying to cheer into his microphone by going,
Vernon:oh, yeah.
Richard:When we set the Bill and Richard show, and his, Chris dotai filter that he runs Chris? Edited it all out.
Vernon:You you embarrassing me in front of my friends. Damn it.
Richard:Right. So thank you everyone for all of your listens and shares and people. Tristan gave us a nice shout out on LinkedIn, yesterday when this was recorded, but thank you for that, Tristan. We got a follower off the back of that. So it does work.
Richard:If you do like it, please, do continue to share.
Vernon:You know it makes sense. We appreciate it.
Richard:So the euros are going on right now, just to get the football out of the way, because you know we, white football. Yeah. This is we're recording this after what was an absolutely atrocious display from, England, England's men's team. Yeah, definitely.
Vernon:We stank the place out. Wow.
Richard:Yeah. That was bad. So, yeah, no more of that. Let's go on to our first, the topic of choice. So it is kind of football inspired.
Richard:So recently, a guy called Vincent Company, who was, in the past, a defender for, Manchester City and lots of other teams and went into management, Had a job at Burnley, who then got relegated from the Premier League, so and played
Vernon:I'm not the biggest team in
Richard:the world No. At all. Not a big team at all? Tiny was it his 2nd team management?
Vernon:Not at the top of the food chain of football clubs at all.
Richard:I'm just having a quick Google now. Yeah. It was a it was only a second job in management as well. Yep. Got relegated, played absolutely terrible football all season, didn't adapt to the Premier League at all, and basically randomly ended up as the manager of Bayern Munich, who are one of the top 10 biggest clubs Easily.
Richard:In the world. Easily. It got me and Vernon thinking, like, that's mad that that happened to Vincent and Company. No offense, Vincent, if you're listening.
Vernon:No. I all all the offense to you, Vincent, because I'm a Liverpool fan, and I also happen to be from Leicester, goddamn you. So when you it top pinned 2019, I'll never forgive you. Anyway, sorry. That was a football tangent.
Vernon:Let's get back on top.
Richard:But it made me think about if you could work at any company in the world in a testing slash quality capacity, and you could start tomorrow, where would you go? Who would you work for? What would you wanna be doing?
Vernon:Clarifying question.
Richard:Yep.
Vernon:Real company? Or Yes. Okay.
Richard:Real company. Okay. I can go first
Vernon:because Please, god, go first. I gotta think about this.
Richard:I well, I probably have more answers if I fought more in-depth. Right? But my immediate one that jumps out to me is SpaceX. Now I am not the front of their leader, but when you see those videos of the rockets coming back down from space, the legs extending out and landing, and when they did that one where they had 3 rockets, one landed on the drone ship, and 2 landed side by side, it blew my tiny mind. Like, I was just in awe, and I was hooked.
Richard:And now I watch every launch pretty much that comes up. And what they're doing with Starship now and how that's, slight belly landing down and then rotating at the last minute. They did a test the other day. Yes. It landed in the sea, but it was intentional.
Richard:But it hovered above the sea for, like, 10 seconds before they let it
Vernon:drop.
Richard:And, like because that's how they're gonna basically, they're gonna catch it. So this is a massive starship that people can board and cargo and stuff, and they're going to catch it in a big cradle. That big arm. It's gonna land, and then they're gonna lock it into place with this big arm. And, like, that just, like, blows my mind.
Richard:So the reason why I like it is obviously space is cool. Right? Regardless, I think space is a fascinating, you know, just mind bending topic because in itself. Right? But, like, doing something is working on something with a team of, like, people who are able to do all that calculations and all that engineering and create something that's never been done at a scale that inspires the whole planet.
Richard:That's what appeals to me about working at somewhere like SpaceX and getting to work on like a rocket that, you know, hopefully continues to be used for good even though I'm sure SpaceX have delivered, you know, satellites and weapons and stuff to space. Disclaimer, I'm not making any accusations. Please don't sue me. I'm just guessing. But, yeah, just that whole concept of, like, you know, going into space, You know, I'm not convinced about the whole going to Mars and colonizing Mars and all that jazz.
Richard:Right? But building a spaceship that can take off, deliver these thing these packages into space and land again. Amazing. Certainly amazing.
Vernon:What so you say you would work there. What would the job be that you would do? Do you know what I mean?
Richard:Well, I I I view this question more as, like, if you could work on any software, I I would work on some of that software, I guess. That's what I would love to say I'd love to do. Like, I don't know if I'd love to do it. Right? But, like, just being on that team and building software that is used as part of that kind of thing would be great.
Richard:Like, don't get me wrong working on apps, accounting software, and all this stuff. Right? It's great tech. Right? But the domain isn't as like, an exciting domain.
Richard:Whereas, if I was just working on, I don't know, some libraries that control the the release of fuel into the engine. I don't know. I'm not I'm not a rocket scientist. Right? But just knowing that you've got some lines of code on that on that rocket, I think it would be.
Richard:I think it'd be cool. That's pretty sick.
Vernon:I was just I was just googling because you reminded me that I think it was last year. It was last summer, right, when Virgin Galactic sent their first space tourism flight in with actual civilians on board up. And the reason I was looking is because I am I am of Antiguan heritage, And 2 of the passengers were from Antigua. Antigua is a Caribbean island that is absolutely stunningly beautiful, and you should visit if you get
Richard:the chance.
Vernon:It has the the best beaches that I've personally ever been on in my entire life. But, it was just incredible that 2 of these people were from Antigua. So how that worked out is, I think there was a lottery basically on the if you were getting Virgin Atlantic flights in a way, then somehow that would get get into you in some kind of lottery. And, one of the people that won, what's the name? I've got it here.
Vernon:Was a lady called Anastasia Myers. And that's how you say it. And she's she was studying just perfectly philosophy and physics at the University of Aberdeen at the time. I think she published it is. But she was from Antigua, and so she managed to get a a flight on this on this first flight into space, and she took her mom with her, which has made it even more easy.
Vernon:And they're both from Antigua. It is too sick. That's too sick. So I was very excited. When I watched that flight, and it was absolutely amazing.
Vernon:But, yeah, I can definitely relate to that. I don't know. I think for me, this this might be a slightly dull answer. But I would like to work at Nintendo because I love vid like, I love video games. I love video games.
Vernon:They're basically just and the kind of video games I enjoy the most are probably sports video games, but also action adventure video games and RPGs and getting lost in the story lines and things that I like I like reading books. And so these are just, like, interactive books for me where I I'm actually the and, you know, the protagonist in the story, which is fantastic for me. And I remember the first time I remember there was there were so many games that I played growing up that my terms of how did they come up with that? Like, how did they how did they decide to put in that little secret, that little Easter egg, that little hidden part of the world? Mhmm.
Vernon:How did they even conceive that? Because you're just experimenting. You don't know what's possible necessarily. And you're always gamers are always trying to break the rules in these games and always trying to explore. I just found it outstanding that you would notice something.
Vernon:So I remember playing, I mean, this is not a Nintendo game. It's gonna be a bit weird. But it was it was wonder boy 3, The Dragon's Curse. I think that's what it's called. I'm just gonna I'm gonna double check that.
Vernon:But Wonder Boys 3 The Dragon's Curse on the Sega Master System was the first game that I played. I was like, what? How have they made this game? This game is insane. It's got all these secret areas and your character changes and evolves.
Vernon:As the game progresses, they start off as a as a knight. On the first level, they charge into a castle to kill this dragon. And as they kill the dragon, the dragon curses the curses you and you and you turn into a dragon. So you're this little cute baby dragon and you're able to breathe fire. And that means you have certain abilities, and then you evolve, and then you evolve, and then you man.
Vernon:Man. And then and then the next time I felt like that was when I was playing Zelda A Link to the Past. Is it a Zelda A Link to the Past? Zelda A Link to the Past on the Super Nintendo? And again, just how did you design this game?
Vernon:How did you figure out to put this, you know, interaction, this scene, this bit of the story, or this bit of the map and make it just difficult enough so that I, the gamer, would have the sense of, oh my god. I've done it. This is amazing. Or how you know, find the secret area where you get some, you know, item. Just I wanna see how they do that.
Vernon:They'd probably have to kill me afterwards because I'd probably go on the podcast and tell everyone how to do it.
Richard:But but I I can think of I think, what is I think there's 2 ways of answering this question if I had more time like that. The immediate answer for me was something that I just look at and go. I just think that is incredible. Like like you're doing with the game, it's like, I just think that technology, that engineering is just mind bendingly incredible, and to be a part of that would be amazing. Yep.
Richard:If I think a bit like you about things like Troy, like, obviously, I'm a huge aviation geek, so, you know, something some software in aviation, but, like
Vernon:I thought
Richard:definitely Boeing though. That's so
Vernon:Why not I I totally thought that, the SpaceX thing was related to that. Like, how much I mean, how much further up can you go? You've got space, dude.
Richard:Yeah. I think it's more, you know, the when I think of aviation, I think of, like, you know, passenger jets, you know, traveling, all the stuff that goes along with flying and stuff as opposed to the SpaceX thing. It's just something that just captivated me as a person. I was just like, that that's just mad. Right?
Richard:But it doesn't you know, there's a bit of amazing technologies out there, right, that, you know, you can look at and be like, that's also amazing, but there was just something about the rockets, you know, just for come just seeing it coming back down and landed, honestly, it gets me every time now. I think there's another guy, Daniel Knotts, the same. I see him tweeting every time there's a SpaceX launch. I think he's got the same whatever bug it is I've been bitten by, he's got the same thing for, like, because he's he he he posts about it too. So
Vernon:Oh, Daniel's a great a great guy. Like, def definitely go and subscribe to his YouTube channel if you haven't already. It's it's similar to me with with video games. There is a there is a just a beautiful blend and combination of art and science and business, but mainly the art and the science. So the art is the storytelling and the character design and the narrative, you know, all of these things and the science is, okay, how are we gonna build this thing?
Vernon:We're building it on a Sega Master System, which, you know, is an 8 bit machine with minimal memory and all the rest of it, and you gotta keep people entertained. And the music is amazing. And how can you use the music to convey what's going on in a given, you know, area of the just all of that, I just find it incredible. And then and then and then to get to be able to test them for a living, my god. I mean, I didn't work as on on anything as amazing as Zelda, sadly.
Vernon:Although, I did work on Bad Boys 2. Go and check that out. Very handsome video game characters I might I might have.
Richard:You just reminded me of That's
Vernon:what I love. Go. Sorry.
Richard:No. You've reminded me of, a meetup I went to in Macclesfield. I did a talk there, and I can't remember the name of the company. It's blue blue something. I don't wanna say blue tech, but something like that.
Richard:But they were a game manufacturer for a long time, and the guy who founded the company was talking about his skills in, game development because you're so limited by memory and size and everything else. Right? Mhmm. And that made them incredibly good at programming. Like, because you needed to keep it all small.
Richard:Yeah. And then they transitioned into mobile app development because the same thing was there. The smaller you can keep the size of your app and updates and space on a device, especially in the early days of phones, obviously the smaller your app was like the better. They they transitioned into mobile apps because of that that thing and that yeah. Like just thinking of, like, testing nowadays.
Richard:Like, if I was testing a mobile app, like, would I be that aware of the size of the app and how much space it's taken these days, you know, compared to running it on, like, an iPhone too. Right? You've alright. There's limited space. But, like, that that translates into what I was thinking about things like SpaceX and, you know, even, like, any of the, like, kind of, like, game where your resource is limited.
Richard:Right? You know, a lot of the work I do in now is on a on the cloud here. And of course, there's, you know, limits to the machines that you use, but you just get a bigger machine. Right? You just, you can just keep upgrading.
Richard:Whereas if you're working on a console or a rocket, right, there's only so much space and lines of code and, you know, memory that you can stick on these things. And, like, it's another aspect of, you know, thinking of, like, quality characteristics that you get into those kind of those kind of spaces.
Vernon:Can you can you imagine testing stuff like that?
Richard:Yes. I can. That's why that's
Vernon:why I wanted it. The nefariousness of what you have to test based you know, wow. Anyway.
Richard:I think I think it would be an amazing challenge, but I also think because it is such a the amount of money like, the danger obviously in well, number 1. Right? The danger of, like, the risk, when we were talking a long time ago after lead to tell you, and they was talking about the medical software, that 2 of the speakers were working on the risk in this, like the risk of death to people near the launch site around the launch site, the rocket, like, you know, like you've gotta test the self destruct of the rocket. Right? Because if it goes off track and starts, you've gotta blow the thing up.
Richard:Right? You've like, you how do you how do you test blowing the rocket without blowing the rocket up? Oh, boy.
Vernon:Yep. Indeed.
Richard:And then, like, there's obviously then, you know, when you carry in people now to the space station, obviously that's risk of life. Like it's and not to mention that each rocket probably cost tens of 1,000,000, if not more. Millions. Yeah. Like, it's 10,000,000.
Richard:It's mad. But that that that let's flow into our next topic of discussion that we wrote down, after a few conversations last week. Emotions in software testing was a topic that came up.
Vernon:What? When did when did what were we talking about when this came up?
Richard:We were talking about I remember explaining that I can't remember what it was. It was about me being very functional, and I love things that just work. And I I don't I like to buy Steady on.
Vernon:I do I do recall 80% polyester.
Richard:Yeah. So at least 80% polyester. Heathen.
Vernon:You're not a complete heathen, mate. You do have some taste in.
Richard:But then I think that triggered you to think about, like, maybe the emotions of wearing nicer clothes or certain brands or certain designs or whatever. Right? And then we kind of got to that whole thing around when it comes to software testing and quality. Functionality is not enough. Right?
Richard:There's other
Vernon:things. Yeah. I mean, what I what I remember well, whenever I think about emotions in software development, but particularly in software testing, they seem I think that they're quite good clues that there is a that there is a problem
Richard:Okay. Yeah.
Vernon:If you are mindful enough to notice. So if you, you know, if you're completely consumed by the emotion, then probably you may not notice. If you're able to slow down just enough to catch yourself in the midst of experiencing whatever the emotion is, that can be quite a clue to dig deeper sometimes. Yeah. So one that I would use wasn't even the favorite one I like talking about wasn't even my emotion.
Vernon:It would be my colleague's emotion. So this is in the this is in the before times when we're all in the same office all the time. And I would you know, I was at my desk, and my friend, GT, was a developer. This is this was when this team I was on was fantastic. Like, everyone that worked there was absolutely brilliant and good fun as well.
Vernon:So he was he'd be sat behind me, but he's he was, generally speaking, a pretty chill guy. You know, he'd have his noise cancels on like most of us did and, you know, listen to tunes or whatever. But if I ever manage to overhear him swearing to himself, honestly, I'll be like, I I need to know what that is because he never swears. Well, not not like that. Well, that's what it felt like.
Vernon:That was always a clue. Like, hang on. The the what the fuck's per minute have increased significantly. I need to find out what's going on. And another one that I've experienced personally would be, frustration.
Vernon:Yeah. And for the thing thing when I get frustrated is is that I I don't I stop thinking and behaving clearly. So it's almost like I have to I have to say to myself almost like almost. I have to say to myself, slow down. What are you trying to achieve?
Vernon:And just notice what's what's what is making that difficult or what isn't making that irritating and annoying and making it very frustrating. And that can help me slow down and get to the source of the issue. So I can change my teammates. But there are other ones like anger, confusion, frustration.
Richard:Well, I think before we move on to these ones, I think the just to respond to the first one, like, the the, fucks per minute. I think the equivalent in the modern day world of that is git commit messages. So input implemented Jira ticket 197. Made a small mistake with 197. This best work.
Richard:What the fuck is going on? Please fucking work. You can just see these git commits coming in, and you get the final one that feature complete, like, whatever it is. I think that's the modern equivalent of that thing because obviously you can't hear the frustration. But, yeah, I've been there as well in that though.
Richard:I think the another one in that same space is, like, if you get to pair with someone and they similar emotion of, like, slightly different emotion than a good way where they're learning a lot as they're doing it. But that same the fact that they're learning as they're going on that framework or block of code often means that it's probably not going to be as optimized or as accurate as they they could be because they're they're they're learning as they go. They've not learned, like, the kind of good practices of that yet. I've had that a few times where we've basically been learning and coding as we go. And that frustration and joy at the same time of going, now I know what it is.
Richard:It's not doing what I want again. Oh, it's doing what I want. Often has led in my experience, led to a couple of small mistakes that we don't notice in the time because we're riding that rollercoaster of going, how does this thing work? Oh, it works that way. That's great.
Richard:Oh, how does this thing work? Oh, it works that way. And you lose that awareness so that you, you know, you might not be doing it as optimally as possible.
Vernon:I've had that too. Interesting. Interesting. That's, use me. Sorry.
Vernon:Yes, mate. I was thinking about when I was on that same team with with GT. Just, because we were we were get we were getting to grips with, BDD and that that meant to a few little sweary gut words, shall we say. That was my first that was my first encounter with the behavioral to behavior driven development.
Richard:Was it related to it should do a, b, c, d. Right? And it just flows out of your mouth. And then someone goes, can you write that as, a Gherkin scenario? And you're like, no.
Richard:I'm like, I've tried. No. I can't.
Vernon:It it kind of was because one of the one of so I absolutely love BDD when I think about it conceptually. But I am yet to work anywhere where we've been able to do it quote unquote properly. And really realize all of the value. And, I've never been when I when I hear it described. And so one of the challenges that we had is that we yeah.
Vernon:The thing that was making me laugh was somebody's attempt to to turn their idea into, you know, like
Richard:a a BDD Scenarios.
Vernon:Yeah. Scenario. You know, you get people say stuff like, as the system, when somebody uses me, then it works. I'm like, what?
Richard:We've mentioned this before. Right? I think we've I think we might have said this one on earlier episodes. I've always loved those tickets that you get. As a user, when I I want to log in, it's like, no, you don't.
Richard:No user no user wants to log in to your website. They wanna buy a t shirt or whatever it is. You're just forcing them to log in because that's how you've architected your system. But yeah. And then I I think why we're laughing about writing it now, like, just with normal tickets, well, like, that's exactly why we've seen the, you know, I'm gonna say shit show because that's what it is when people use it just to automate.
Richard:And then you end
Vernon:up with
Richard:20 line long scenarios because it's just and and and and and and then it might as well chuck a few more whens and thens in just for fun.
Vernon:Yeah. I've been there. It's wild, mate.
Richard:So that that's my only real experience of BDD. I know a lot of good sides because former colleague, Mark Winteringham, used to, teach teach BDD, so I've seen a lot of his work. And whenever we meet him, he used to teach the automation and testing class, there was always, there was a there's a lesson in that class where we get able to review an existing automated checks, and some of them are in Gherkin. And, basically, at the end of that exercise, as always, we made a big deal of it. Like, we were like, right.
Richard:Okay, Mark. Here you go. You've got 12 minutes. Start your rant. So And then he would fly through his rant, and then I'd be like, that time
Vernon:up. But you are.
Richard:It was it was basically what we're saying about, you know, BDD is great and can be incredibly impactful if you're doing it in the, you know, like, and what's Liz Keogh's thing? Like, having the conversation is more important than automating the conversation, which is more important than documenting the conversation. Right? Having
Vernon:yeah. Yeah. Having the conversation, if I were to find it while it's talking, having the conversation is more important. Yeah. I'm pretty sure it's that.
Richard:Because automating is better than documenting because then you got living documentation that she refers to. And then obviously having the conversation is far more than just documenting it in the 1st place.
Vernon:Yeah.
Richard:But, yeah, I've not, I've not been in a bit I've not been in a context that's done it well at all. I've only been in, like I said, the awful context where it's been used as an abstraction layer in automation, which again can can be valuable. But in the context I was in, it was a layer for the sake of having a layer to make it less technical to read what the tests were doing. Whereas instead it was given us 2 more layers to maintain and 2 more layers to write when we create and incredibly slowed us down.
Vernon:It wasn't
Richard:valuable at all. So yeah, made me feel frustrated, made me feel annoyed about 2 emotions. Made me made me feel despair. So another emotion which might sound like, I don't know, counterintuitive that I listen to is often joy and ease of using the application, because it makes me, it makes me go, is it easy because it's me and I know the app and I've been involved in all the conversations and or is it easy and joyful to use because it's actually joyful to use? And I found that really interesting to get my, you know, biases and stuff checked by somebody else.
Richard:And like, you know, I think this app is right really, really nice. Like I need to get someone else to say if it's true or not. And most of the time, it has been the case that it is a really nice app. But there's other occasions that I talk a lot about stories around automation where I know where things are gonna be. So I'm already drawing my eyes and my mouse to where I know that component's going to load.
Richard:Whereas I think if someone didn't know that, they're going to see So I only see one component because I'm already I'm already fixed on it. I'm waiting for it to load. I'm interacting with it as soon as it appears. Whereas other people, they see the full page. Right?
Richard:They see 6, 7, 8, 10 components all loading at the same time. And are they going to be drawn to the one that they're meant to be getting their attention for? So, yeah, that that was one of the scenarios where I've I was like, I can't wait for this component to load. It's so pretty. It looks great.
Richard:It works, and I know where it's gonna be, and it just works. So it's brilliant, and it's all tested. It's the best thing ever. Right? But other people, when they went to review it, they they weren't drawn to that one.
Richard:They were drawn to the other one, which had, like, a carousel on it with, like, images sliding across. Their eyes were drawn over there and not to the one I wanted them to look at. Well, not me, but the team wanted them to look at. So, yeah, I think joy is a great one. And most of the time it's like, yes, this is an awesome emotion we've done really good work here.
Richard:But sometimes it can be, I think, I assume you're in a mislead job.
Vernon:Fear fear is one for me. Maybe maybe the complete one. Maybe not the total opposite. Maybe the opposite of joy is sadness, but fear is 1. So if I I I have a lot of fear about doing anything almost with software.
Vernon:And I was like, okay, is can I recover from this situation? So if I, you know, if I delete something, can I recover it? Or if I choose if I change an option, can I go back to it? And that can be again, that could be another signal that maybe something isn't very usable or it's not very clear that the consequences Yes. There's that there's that added your, you know, concept in in UX design, which is something along the lines of if if the if the user makes a mistake in the application, it's it's your fault Mhmm.
Vernon:As the person or persons designing the system. So the everything should be as usable or clear as possible. So it should be obvious that if I interact with a particular thing in this app, what the consequences of that thing will be. And if I do that, and then I lose data or I, you know, I'm in the middle of a flow, and then I get picked out, and I'm I have to start all over again. That should not be possible.
Vernon:So whenever I find myself a little bit scared or reluctant to take an action, I'm like, oh, what's going on here? Is is there a problem is there a problem with the app or am I just being a chicken?
Richard:But you know what's fun about that?
Vernon:Is the system not very testable? And I'm just scared that, oh, no. Maybe. Start all this all over again because if I if this doesn't work, then the system is trashed and the the the
Richard:The one that terrifies me, and it's now I'm picturing it in my head. The design doesn't help, right? And it's sending people money. So when you're banking Oh
Vernon:my god.
Richard:When you send people money. Right? And I know there's, like, I know they're more popular in America like Venmo and Cash App and these things that, you know, are a lot more, you know, smaller transactions, probably not not that big deal. Right? Mhmm.
Richard:But, like, when you do it in the banking app, like, you're already nervous or, like, you know, I am anyway. But then now you get the massive red text that says, are you being scammed?
Vernon:How do you chat this in?
Richard:And you're like, what? What? And then you're tweeting this text, and then you're like, I don't know. Am I being scammed? I don't know.
Richard:Right? Vernon said I was just paying for the chips. Am I paying for more than the chips? Like, how much were the chips? Like, whatever it was.
Vernon:Future reference, Rich. It's totally normal to pay £10,000,000 for chips. Just letting you know.
Richard:K? But, like, that's that's a funny thing that I feel that when you get you know, every app that wants to do something that isn't reversible or high risk or whatever, right, it's always red. You know what I mean? Because we want to make you aware that what you're doing might be reversible, but also at the same time, most of the users are maybe not always, like, you know, ready for that. Most people want you know, it's it's nice to be told the warnings, but I'm not sure they always help with, you know, those emotions.
Richard:And the one for me was paying for the house deposit. Like, sending someone, you know, tens of 1,000 of pounds for deposit for your house and, like, really hoping that it arrives where it's meant to because the amount of times I triple check those numbers, like well, I remember I think I was with my dad as well. I was like, like, can you check these numbers, dad? I just and then check them again.
Vernon:What do you mean? Like, double and tripleted.
Richard:But then you hear all those stories. Right? When people get money by mistake, and then they don't tell anyone, and then they spend it. And then they
Vernon:Tell me about it, mister Rich. Tell me about it. Yeah. Goddamn it.
Richard:So, yeah, it is like, the fair one is a massive one, and it is. It is yeah. I think I agree with that one. That one is a really good one. I'm trying to think of some of this emotions that I get during test.
Richard:Now you mentioned frustration, like, you shout, you know, you took that one in. I think that's a very common heuristic. Right? If if we're building it and we're used to the domain and we're used to the knowledge and context of an app and we're frustrated using it, like, the users are gonna be really frustrated using it. And so
Vernon:Another motion that you can use in your life is suspicion. We have very rude children who you can hear getting up to no good whilst you're on a podcast, and they think they will not be, caught and busted and rumbled. But I'm onto you, lad. Sorry. It's urgent.
Richard:No suspicion's a good one. Like, I I I actually was doing some testing today, and I don't know what you call it. Right? But maybe may maybe someone that you maybe you might know a better term for it. I'm sure I'll probably do it in the back of my head somewhere, but, like, yeah, you've seen a few things go wrong in the past, like, bugs.
Richard:Right? You've seen these bugs and then, like, you know, that was weeks ago. Right? And now you're testing something else, and you've seen kind of a similar bug, but not you know, it's definitely not correlation. Like, you know, there's definitely not, they're definitely not causation instead of correlation maybe.
Richard:But, like, that that suspicion where you go,
Vernon:wonder if
Richard:they're the same root cause, and how could I quickly test that hypothesis? And I had one today where proved not to be the case, but I had a hunch. There's employment records that you have in our system that are in Salesforce.
Vernon:Correct.
Richard:And in certain scenarios, it was working. Basically, whole parent child relationship kind of problems in a hierarchy of companies.
Vernon:Okay.
Richard:And I've, my hunch was because it worked on one time and I thought, what's going on here? I wonder if it's the order of the records. I wonder if it's taking the first one
Vernon:Yeah.
Richard:And ignoring the rest. And usually, the first one would be the latest one, and that's how it's doing what it's doing. So I quickly tested it, and it it was not true. It was not a good hypothesis. But it did lead to me realizing that the fact that that scenario worked was because it had been set up on.
Richard:So it had been set up on the parent, not the child, and it was the children thing that was failing. So it did lead me to realizing that it the scenario didn't work. The date was wrong. So that suspicion wasn't where it wasn't suspicious of the right thing, but that suspicion led me enough to try something else, which did reveal something interesting.
Vernon:Suspic when have I when have I used I think suspicion comes into play for me in a in a whole host of different ways, and I and I so because I've been on a bunch of different projects, sometimes, often it's consciously, but oftentimes it's it's unconscious. You kind of distill these patterns or you see certain things before. And it's isn't that funny? So I was listening to a YouTube video today by Alex Somozzi. I was listening to Alex Somozzi videos.
Vernon:He's this business guy. But he was talk he was talking about this. Right? So I get I get suspicious where let's say we're on a project, and then what's an example? You might be you might be you might be implementing an API maybe.
Vernon:And maybe because I've been on projects before where the way the API was implemented when certain character sets were submitted via the API, things blew up. Yeah. I'm now suspicious whenever we're doing that again. I'm like, well, I'm gonna make sure I check that, because the last time I ran into that thing or the last few times I ran into that thing, you know, it kicked me right in the privates. And he was he was the way he described it was quite interesting.
Vernon:So he was talking about in terms of the matrix. So there's the scene in the first matrix where Morpheus is showing Neo the matrix, and he's trying to say, if anyone who's still plugged into the matrix is the enemy. And as he's explained, there's all these people, and there's a woman in the in in a red dress to walk past. She's stunningly beautiful. The dress looks amazing.
Vernon:And so Morpheus goes to him, were you looking were you listening to me, or were you looking at the woman in the red dress? And he's like,
Richard:is
Vernon:it look at her again. And he turns around, and it's like an agent with a gun in his face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Vernon:Mhmm. So Alex Hamreza was, like, saying, so you you you make that mistake, but then, you know, you fast forward a few iterations, whatever. And then it's not a blonde woman in a red dress. It's, I don't know, a brown haired woman in an orange dress. You know, well, it's not the same, but it kind of is the same.
Vernon:Maybe it's not her, but it's her sister. And maybe maybe, you know or maybe she was in a short dress, now she's in a long dress. Or maybe she was a white woman, now she's a black woman or do you know what? He's basically saying, it's kind of the same. I was like, that's a really interesting way to describe it.
Vernon:So, yeah, when your hackles get raised or your suspicions get aroused and you're like, I think I've been in this scenario before. Let me just check x, y, or zed or share something with the team. That could be that could be very useful to do.
Richard:So I I got, I had a nice, message from, a friend of ours called Baron, this week, which has made me Hudsonville. Yeah. Which has made me think of the test fit deck that he made. Right? Which has emotions in it.
Richard:But also what you just described brings back the, heuristics. Right? Because, like, to just, like, go back full to the very start of the podcast, I I don't I'm not a gamer. But in these games and when I see clips of people playing game, it's like, why is why is there, like, a bin on the edge of that balcony? Like, what is that?
Richard:Like, is that someone disguised as a bin who's gonna shoot me? Like or, you know, like, why why is there, you know, why is there a different colored brick on that wall? Right? Again, I don't play these games, but like these examples that, like, draw your suspicion and then after a while, instead of thinking that you're suspicious, you design a heuristic that allows you to apply said heuristic to go. So you're gonna immediately now join that level and go, is there any difficult breaks?
Richard:Is there any bins anywhere? Is there any people wearing orange dresses? Right? You you immediately come in with your heuristics. Right?
Richard:And then over time, you turn those heuristics maybe into a cheat sheet, and then you immediately go through your cheat sheet. So I think you can I think when we think about software and, like, testing and quality aspects of it, a lot of it does stem from the emotions? Listening to those emotions, taking some actions that result in useful information, and then thinking about applying them again. And you mentioned familiarity, and I I think that was one of the early heuristics I got taught was the familiar reality heuristic, but it was taught to me from a point of view of this is a news website, BBC. This is a news website, Sky News.
Richard:How are they familiar? Right? Because you're both in the same domain. There should be some aspects of familiarity and can you spot them. You know, I I don't know.
Richard:Topics for the news pieces or images or things, and then you would spot something on one familiar app that you go, we we do not have that. Like, why don't we have that, like, obvious thing that every news app or every weather app has.
Vernon:Yeah.
Richard:Right? And then you you plug that in. And then over time, again, you turn that into like a rule or a risk stick or a cheat sheet that says, you know, make sure we have this on this page. And then we we'd naturally start to have all these test ideas and things that help us come up with test ideas. I think what is it?
Vernon:I think they're probably the main ones for me. The fear, the suspicion, or the people's frustration, and my own frustration.
Richard:Frustration is what
Vernon:the for me. I don't joy was the interest of I don't know if that's maybe some maybe I'm just a miserable git. I know. That's it. Focus on joy.
Vernon:Oh, man. Usually, I'm just, like, hacked off. Why is this thing that word? Why can't I do this?
Richard:I think, like, you know, joy, positive, happiness, like, there's definitely been apps I've used, you know, in the past where we, you know, we get into a really good place with them. And, you know, they they it does feel joy to use, like, you know, especially if you're on an app where for me, it was a mobile app used by millions of people, and the time and money that we got to really focus on the UX of that app, it did make it a joyful experience to use the app. You know, there was obviously areas of frustration, but, like, being able to make these little tweaks that made it sort of a lot easier for the user to get from a to b or to get to exactly what they're looking for. You know, it did bring joy when you saw it, you know, in in, you know, actually in, you know, built and in front of you. It was pretty cool.
Richard:Yeah. I can't think of any other massive ones. But, yes. Like, honestly, share in the comments wherever you'll pick this link up from. What emotions trigger you the most or help you the most with your software, you know, testing and quality work.
Richard:Maybe some stories if you've got any to share. Please please ping them and ping them somewhere.
Vernon:Yeah. Let us know.
Richard:Let us know. And if you wanna share your dream job, if you could work in any company doing software testing quality work, where would you work? And why? There was none. Cool.
Richard:Right. Apart from that, subscribe, follow, share, link, do all those things. We're desperately if I put on my, what's his name? Steven Bartlett from Mathario, the CEO. Me and Vernon are on a mission to be able to put links on the YouTube video.
Richard:In order to do that, we need a 1,000 subscribers. We have had more than, 2,000 listeners in total. Is that it's
Vernon:it's a set it's a piece of piece it's watch time, isn't it? So if you had the watch time, I haven't looked at the stats.
Richard:No. It's it's purely followers for this feature. It's a 1,000 followers. Oh, okay. So it's that ability to add links to the videos.
Richard:Well, I looked at some stats, and we've had more than 2,000 different people watch, as far
Vernon:as the videos. Impression. We've had no. I can't do the smooth Steve and Bartler voice.
Richard:Anyway, please share, subscribe, comment, feedback. Do all those beautiful, wonderful things, and thank you all for listening.
Vernon:And Give us some advice and or feedback on how we can make these these episodes better. We would love to get it. You know, hit us up LinkedIn. Hit us up on have have people got our emails? Do we even have an email?
Vernon:I don't even know if we have an email. We don't have Twitter yet. Oh, excellent.
Richard:But we have them.
Vernon:So Yeah. Pictures directly. Yeah, man. Cool.
Richard:Alright. And my, best, rest is football voice. Goodbye from me.
Vernon:And goodbye from me.
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