Because they bring me such joy, I will share with you all the software testing videos I share with my Software Design and Development students.
Video 1/3: “We don’t need user testing! We already know our users”
Video 3/3 (I feel this one •deeply•, to the bone):
“Developer watching QA test the product”
@inthehands this whole thread is spectacular. The spectator's face as they put the circle through the square, the kids sliding down the hill, all of it. Glorious!
@geoffreyconley
We’ve all been her.
I told the students, “If your user test doesn’t make you feel like that sometimes, you’re either not testing soon enough or not testing hard enough.”
@inthehands now if I could just figure out an appropriate way to reference these when an exec or client tries to de-prioritize user testing
@geoffreyconley @inthehands
Tell them about when Chevrolet tried marketing the Nova in Mexico and it was a big bust because no one on the US side knew that in Spanish, no va means "it doesn't go"
You want to be that guy?
ETA I learned this in school in the 1970s, but apparently the part about it tanking was an urban myth. They did market the Nova in Mexico, but it did ok. And apparently car makers have had other names that didn't translate well.
@CassandraVert @inthehands oh there are folks who seem willfully determined to be that guy
@harald @CassandraVert @geoffreyconley @inthehands Fiat was advertised in Finland using the slogan 'petojen sukua', i.e. 'predators' kin'... until someone added 'susi jo syntyessään', i.e., 'a wolf [Finnish for 'lemon'] by birth'. In Finnish 'susi' means 'wolf', but also a failed product or 'lemon'.
And the Toyota Yaris inevitably becomes Toyota Varis ('crow')...
@martinvermeer @CassandraVert @geoffreyconley @inthehands also when Fiat Punto was chosen as Car of the Year (vuoden auto, literally also Car for a Year), people extended that to Maybe two Years (Ehkä kahden), a pun on the quality of Fiat cars back then.
@inthehands @harald @martinvermeer @geoffreyconley
Is that the one where you have to pull up the center console to work on the engine? Worst design I ever saw.
@CassandraVert
It’s the model where the placenta covers the cervical opening, which can be quite dangerous
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/placenta-previa/symptoms-causes/syc-20352768
@martinvermeer @harald @CassandraVert @geoffreyconley @inthehands Or the Honda Fitta in Sweden, quickly changed the name when they discovered that it literally meant pussy in swedish.
@fredrik @martinvermeer @harald @CassandraVert @geoffreyconley
Oh my, I hadn’t heard that one!
@geoffreyconley
Something like, "Shaka in the square hole" perhaps.
@inthehands
Reminded of an ancient posting about testing. They were testing cat litter. The cats were rooting particles out of the litter boxes and playing with them.
The observer was mournfully saying something like, "The client is not going to like this. . . ."
@inthehands Third one tells me that the product is overdesigned and product/UX did a poor job. Or the software designer if it’s an API.
Being able to do all that with just a fraction of the functionality available? I think that’s neat.
Two first ones gave me a laugh, so true :)
Pretend it's meant to keep things out, rather than accept things in.
Like, it's a firewall or some shit, and users can just make whatever pass through, without even really trying.
Every time I watch this video I laugh until my eyes water
And it's been that way for _years_ now
@Polychrome @inthehands
All so that they could bypass corporate firewalls...
@Red_Shirt_no2 @Polychrome @inthehands classic example of the internet treating censorship as damage and routing around it
@inthehands That last one made me laugh out in class
The others are great too.
@rgbunny
They’re so good! Also [professor voice™] stop watching videos in class!
this is how everybody uses the Colors UI afaik cc @troy_s
IT DOES NOT GO IN THE FUCKING SQUARE HOLE TROY
@inthehands This cracked me up hard.
@inthehands the Times has been in bed with fascists my entire life.
@inthehands The third one is deliciously accurate because that's exactly the sorta shit good QA people object the software to.
"Oh, a text field – let me put in a NUL, a unicode snowman, a console bell and an RTL text direction switcharoo and see how big the explosion is."
@inthehands Was that not originally "QA/dev watching as the user uses the product"?
If your QA team aren't shoving everything in every hole then they need firing!
Whereas it's well known that users will find unexpected ways to interact with your device/app/website.
@inthehands dev keeps dying inside
@inthehands Hilarious.
women are used to men trying to put things in the wrong holes
but are still disappointed
@inthehands me (right) when $Department askes me to test/review their now processes
@inthehands hahahahaha.
@inthehands video description: a bucket with a lid has holes cut out for various shapes like a square, a triangle, a circle, and an arch. A hand is seen picking up blocks with cross sections matching those shapes, buy by reorienting them sideways it manages to put every shape through the square hole, after first pausing in front of the "correct" hole for that shape. A split view shows a woman becoming increasingly distressed as she encourages the right solution for each shape but is let down every time. The video is from TikTok user @ tired_actor
@inthehands the first two I didn't know and they're absolutely brilliant, but that last one UNFORGETTABLE. The only reason I don't watch it every day is because I would literally die laughing.
@inthehands roflflflflflf that's so f**in true, especially if comes to #Accessibility
why not just label buttons as button 1 button 2 etc? because bork! lmfao
@inthehands That is insane - I was just watching that exact video randomly.
@inthehands Very entertaining! Unfortunately, also too true in many cases. Of course, the solution is not to chop up the work into little pieces and have different teams/people do each little piece. The product never would have turned out that way had it been designed collaboratively by a team of people with all the necessary skills. If your programmers (not "developers" in the full sense) "watch" someone else test the product, that in itself is a huge red flag about the process.
@inthehands @boxofrain This is a stone cold classic
@inthehands Looks like the user found a good workflow and whoever was responsible for so badly overengineering the UX aspect should have a talking to
@inthehands This whole thread is the best thing I've ever seen.
This is soooooo related to development of any kind.
@inthehands I don't know why I love this so much...I don't know if I'm gaining pleasure from this person's distress, or that I'm elated by the lateral thinking of the individual in this video that everything can* go in the square hole
@inthehands Ill say though: before this happens, I've been in this situation where i realized "everything could go through the square of you are creative, so no need to implement circles etc" then have someone exists that the square hole in its own won't do, and have me spend time doing the other parts, only for the principle taking place in this video occurring.
@inthehands work with companies, sports teams on weather impacts and predictions. "have you covered snow?" never snowed here. "here's the 67 snow events in the last 10 years". "gale force winds... no...? 25 times". "temperature drop over 10 degrees in an hour? no? wait! you're not going to believe this!!!". etc. both design and testing are hard when you're dealing with things that are impossible!
@inthehands the question is, on whom is the joke? Technically, the dude does it right, if the goal is to get all bricks into the box, mission accomplished. Maybe some things are designed overly complex, if a square hole is all you need...
@inthehands I knew when I saw the thread subject this video would be included
@inthehands this video causes me an unreasonable amount of distress.
@inthehands I feel her suffering. I've got users like that.
Although, I've gained some experience anticipating at least some of my users' actions. Which was a painful path to walk.
@inthehands This video will never be not funny, it is so good.
@inthehands Meanwhile, I'm the user who says to themselves, "Yay! I finally found the One Thing that works for everything, at least, eventually! DO NOT take away my One Thing!"
@inthehands all three were hilarious. Thanks for posting. These videos answer so many questions.
@fulanigirl
I once had a student say (I think of the second one? I forget) that they didn’t really understand the terminology from the reading until they watched the video.
@inthehands In case you need a GIF about debugging: This scene from "Coraline" is my favorite.
@inthehands this is all so true.
@inthehands I actually laughed to tears on this one, though they were all great! kids were hilarious, soap dispenser seems too likely to occur!