Today's tip is about Rapid Reporter, a tool created by a tester (Shmuel Gershon) for testers (especially those, who practice Session Based Test Management of Exploratory Testing, SBTM).

If you do exploratory testing, try the tool and let us (or the author) know how did it go.  Otherwise, at least try doing exploratory testing...

 

RapidReporterUserGuidePic

Many times while documenting folder structure I used to take a screenshot of a tree in MS Explorer and put it to the document along with some written descriptions.

There were drawbacks, but it was acceptable as "quick and dirty". Now, with a mind mapping tool, like XMind, we can finally make it "quick, nice, maintainable, and interactive".

And here's why.

1. You can quickly and easily customize appearance (size, font, shape, color) of each topic


2. You can insert images into topics to further improve visual presentation (2 clicks job)


3. For every topic, representing a folder, you can provide that many additional details:
   
   
   
   • short description as a Label
   
   
   • long description as a Note
   
   
   • attached documents
   
   
   • Hyperlink to a physical folder
   
   
   • sub-structure as a Floating Topic
   
   
   • Relationship to another Topic
   
   
   
   


4. With a free version, you can export as an image or html document; with a Pro version you can export to PDF or Word


5. And all of that with a quick and convenient visual drag-n-drop interface

The image below is linked to the downloadable *.xmt template on XMind.net web-site. A generic Automated Testing Suite folder structure was taken as a sample.

XMind mindmap - folder structure template document

Solve puzzles by using basic programming concepts in a fun way. No record/playback!

Click opens a third-party website

For those of you who do web testing, Support Details is a handy little utility for when you report issues. It automatically pulls down information related to the browser you're using, and it allows you to either download that info (csv, pdf) or email it to someone who can look into the issue. Since I have several computers and each has a couple of browsers (all constantly doing their own automatic updates) this is really nice for when I submit something that I suspect might be browser specific.

Have you ever heard "no one would do that"..."every user knows that" types of answers? You knew it's wrong. You've dealt with it.

And now here's a great article by Jakob Nielsen in today's tip: Mental Models.

Please read the entire article via the link provided, I put here just a few lines (per author's copyright requirements).

• What users believe they know about a UI strongly impacts how they use it.


• Individual users each have their own mental model.


• Many of the usability problems we observe in studies stem from users having mixed-up mental models that confuse different parts of the system.

Before I thought of "role-based testing" in terms of user access type roles and security settings. I see now how to enrich my exploratory testing scenarios based on mental model simulation: a newbie user, a "quick-clicker", a multitasker, came-from-competitor user,... list goes on.

Share your experience with us.