Remember this from our definition of a bug in Chapter 1? The software is difficult to understand, hard to use, slow, orin the software tester's eyeswill be viewed by the end user as just plain not right. As a software tester checking the usability of a software product, you're likely the first person to use the product in a meaningful way, the first person to see it all come together in its proposed final form. If it's hard to use or doesn't make sense to you, customers will have the same issues. Above all, don't let the vagueness or subjectivity of usability testing hinder your test effort. It's vague and subjective by nature. Even the experts who design the user interfaces will admit to thatwell, some of them will. If you're testing a new product's UI, refer to the lists in this chapter that define what makes for a good one. If it doesn't meet these criteria, it's a bug, and if it's a usability bug, it might just be the law. |