Category Archives: Learning

Link Missing In Action

22 April 2019 Mindful tester

“Know the ways of all professions”
– Miyamoto Musashi

UX designer

A few blog posts ago I told about my attempts to make this very blog more accessible. I just walked my talk.

For people who need a story:
As a user with no or bad view I want headers tagged as headers, so that the screen reader can read the headers differently aloud.

Web master

I changed the look of the headers in a lot of blog posts. I went in a flow and gained more speed in the process, until …

A small square disappeared. I just did an undo and continued editing.

The next time I let the square disappear, I had already updated the blog post on the web.

Hit the OK, Jack.
[on the melaody of “Hit the road, Jack”]

This was not good for my user journey. I did not want to lose a user by a missing link. Just stick around.

Tester

There was an easy trick for finding missing links. On the internet there were free websites and add ons for browsers available.

Marketeer

As a marketeer I had some problems with broken link reporters. A reporter had to hit every page and every link in it. So the number of hits would increase significantly.

Even worse there are web pages referring to other web pages. So some pages are counted double. Then there are categories and months referring to pages. So some pages are counted more than twice.

This would hide the real traffic in my daily reports. But this is not a company web site. Otherwise I should have to add a note about a maintenance period. For an auditor. So I could skip this role.

Tester again

First pick of a broken link service stopped half way. The second looked promising, but it had terms and conditions.

Legal expert

Now I was curious. I clicked on the link and landed on a page with lots of legal sentences. Must be American thing.

I tried to distil the information. The most important message was that the service was provided as is. There were no financial consequences for the service providers.

I have a website which does not provide me any income.
So what was I waiting for?

Enter my website and show my broken links you can find.

Author

Now it was the turn for the author to have a fix.
Yeah. Sure.

The first broken link was ejc2008.de. This is short for European Juggling Convention 2008 in Germany. More than 10 years ago. This must be an old-timer.

I entered the URL in the browser and got an error message. After 10 years the website was taken offline. But I needed a link.

Then I looked for internet archive wayback machine in my search engine. This website stores all versions of visited websites. I entered ejc2008.de and found my website.

I picked a link to 2019 copy and replaced the link in the blog posts. This way people can still read about a convention which was visited by more than 3,000 people sharing the fun of juggling.

In my list of broken links I found a link to a Let’s Test conference in 2015. I had a better link available, so I just updated the link. A similar situation for the first TestBash conference in the Netherlands.

It was a simple test tool. No need to switch to tester mode.

Another run of broken link test revealed that I had not changed the About me page. Why did they show up now? No idea.
Anyways. Fixed.

3rd test run revealed no more missing links. But something was wrong. I missed the comeback of the square. Popping back in view.

Web master again

In my memory I tried to locate the square. It was during header 6 handling. Then I remembered the use of anchors.

An anchor is a fast way to get a reader at the right place in a blog post instead of the top of the post. This saves the reader some scrolling. Example time.

In my blog post about a test exercise the following code is shown in my code editor:

My last upload before my workshop was for me <a href="http://mindfultester.com/a-look-behind-the-scenes/#disaster">another exercise in exploration</a>.

In my blog post “A look behind the scenes – in Runö” the following code is shown in my code editor:

<h1><strong><a id="disaster"></a>Flirting with disaster</strong></h1>

A broken link checker only checks whether the link exists and ignores the presence of an anchor. So it was an anchor missing in action.

Now I had to check the 90ish blog posts for anchors. Preferably automatically and not clicking all links myself. Please.

If I could only find them. I got a flash of insight. It was possible to find blog posts with a search engine in my Content Management System or website authoring program.

I looked for #. And yes, all blog posts with anchors and links with anchors were listed. Now it was easy to add missing anchors.

Professions

So I was

Tester
Marketeer
Legal expert
UX designer
Author
Web master

I skipped the auditor though.

Learning, Mind mapping, Techies conferring

Conference Digest Mind Map

17 April 2019 Mindful tester

This is my small tribute to Tony Buzan, who died on April 13th 2019. He was the inventor of the mind map. Rest in peace Tony.

Quick breakdown of my mind map

On my smartphone I use Mindjet Mindmanager. It is a rather dull looking mind map program. I can add colour, but that will slow me down. For me mind mapping is jotting ideas as fast as possible.

My first action was to make my conference notes readable. My handwriting is quite awful. The use of sketchnotes did not improve the quality significantly.
Just wait and see.

My notes were about WordCamp Rotterdam 2019. There were some really technical talks. It is almost impossible to translate technical stuff like settings of analytics programs or Cascading Style Sheets to images.
Yeah. You’re right.

Okay. The Notes branch was needed as a reminder that I would read my notes without thinking too long.

Almost immediately I added a branch with presentations. If needed, I would read the presentations in slow speed. Just before blogging I realized I made an error. I opened Twitter search and entered the hashtag “#wcrtm” and “slides”. #wcrtm stands for WordCamp RotTerdaM. All the presentations of the interesting talks popped up.

Another branch is Goodies. These are gifts of sponsors. I lost my highlighter somewhere. I marked this branch with a red cross. Then I remembered that I had a camera sticker from a previous conference, which I found and placed. So I marked this branch with a green V. For the English people: Jack in the box.

I got some booklets / books about SEO or Search Engine Optimalisation, performance of a website and website security. The reason, that I did put this branch under the central object, was to balance the tree. This tip was given by a business consultant. The way I interpreted was that I had to avoid a mindmap with too few main branches.

Back to my Books branch. This branch contained information which I could use. Not immediately, but it was something I could not put away lightly. The Goodies branch was more like: done and forget.

Now comes the most important main branch in my mind map: Actions. Sub branches were added during my note cleanup.

This website still had no proper 404 screen. Yes, there are some plug ins, but is there a more elegant way to solve this problem? Also too many plug ins will slow down my website.

During the conference there were lots of configuration suggestions. As a newbie WordPress administrator I asked, how I could configure this. The answer was to contact the host provider. Actions from my side could collide with actions from the host provider. Bracing for impact.

I still have to place a security.txt on my website. More information can be found in securitytxt.org.

On the web I read some disturbing information about Xmlrpc.php. On the conference it was strongly suggested to remove it.

Another action was to collect all my markers for future notes. A final action was to put extra information about text in my pictures in the Alt Text.

Depending on my progress and feedback of my host provider I will adjust my actions in my mind map.

Learning, Test automation

Escape The Consultant Trap

21 March 2019 Mindful tester

During a talk at a test conference a consultant told smilingly to stick to customers. The woman next to me was bristling. Her company hired consultants.

Is there a way to make this situation more painful for me?
You bet.

As a test consultant I had given her a ticket for the conference.
Ouch.

A good consultant makes herself or himself dispensable.

Definition obliged

Looking at the Dutch job market there is a cry for test automation experts. Even testers with a few months of experience have a distinct advantage over the inexperienced testers. They have a proof that they can use the demanded tool. And they are hired.

So if a company really needs test automation and no candidates have been found, then a test automation expert is flown in. This gives the company a real advantage. Or wings for the intended pun.

What is the consultant trap? After a while there is a test framework and lots of scripts and impressive heaps of test data which must be executed, updated, and maintained. In good order.

It is like buying a car which needs intensive care. If it is neglected for too long, then the car will not ride.

All the test automation stuff can be compared with a car. The mechanic is the test consultant.

No consultant means no working test automation, which means no edge, less revenue, and stronger competition. The company is trapped. This also hurts the revenue.

Path obliged

There are some managers who would object with

“This is a proof of concept.”
“The product is at the end of the life cycle.”
“The consultant is only hired during the holiday of one of my employees.”

These sound like sound arguments.

In this blog post I want to focus on test automation experts who are the only ones to operate the test automation in a company.
That’s bad.

Suppose you are a manager and you have the task to improve test automation. Now you have to avoid the consultant trap.

But you still need a consultant to teach test automation to your team member.
Hummm.

According to me a good teacher doesn’t make the homework of a pupil. In terms of test automation a consultant is helping your team member with learning instead of putting all test automation in place.

Don’t touch everything.

Is there a way to determine whether a consultant is a good teacher?
Sure.

Ask to explain how to set up test automation in plain language. Or ask for possible first steps in your company. Other useful resources are recommendations of other customers, talks, or blog posts.

My suggestion is to keep the number of hours of the consultant low and the number of hours spent by your team member high.

My favourite way to learn something new is pairing. As a pupil I like to share the same computer with an expert while figuring out what is happening. The teacher (she or he) demonstrates things to me and then let me struggle.

Pairing is an activity for 2 persons. I do not like searching the right note with fast scribbled words on it because of the high pace of demonstration. And then interrupting my teacher who is teaching someone else in the meantime.

Attention!

While I was learning Test Driven Development, a junior DevOps engineer was watching every step I took.

Once in a while he made remark. Then I told my thoughts aloud and he would gently lead me to the right solution. He had an educational degree and earned my respect.

In short it is about finding the right balance between demonstrating and experimenting.

Another way for me to learn is exploring. Elisabeth Hendrickson made a nice concise format for this:
Explore < target > with < resources > to discover < information>.

I personally like exploring because of the hidden treasures I might find. Dungeons and diamonds.

OK. Back to the Example.
(No DeLorean included.)

A consultant could suggest something like
“Explore data driven testing with Postman to discover a concise way to maintain test scripts.”
A bit vague.

I tend to ask questions.
“What is data driven testing?”

A good teacher will give some examples:
“Suppose you buy 2 items costing 1 Euro each. What will be the total cost?”
“2 Euro.”

“And if you buy 4 items costing 1 Euro each. What will be the total cost?”
“4 Euro.”

“6 items for the same price?”
“6 Euro.”

“23 items.”
“23 Euro.”

“What did you notice?”
“The question became shorter. And you only changed the number every time.”

“So the numbers are data. What I described were 4 simple tests. In Data driven testing a tester or developer extracts data from the tests. So you only need 1 test with a set of data.”

“What would be a good to store the data?”
“A table like in spreadsheet program.”

And this conversation and experimentation could continue for hours.

After the session a debriefing can take place to reflect and determine new points of interest.

After a while I could explore on my own. If I get stuck, then I could contact the consultant.

Let me write about exploration of data driven testing on my own.
“What is the first place to look for?
I don’t like manuals.

Wait. This is cool:
TestAutomationU offers a free online course from Amber Race about Postman.

It contains a section about data driven testing.”

For the video I used sketchnotes for note taking. When I did some experimentation in this course, I used a word processor for notes.

Also now a debriefing is the way to reflect and to determine new steps. A consultant or colleague can be a person to speak with.

Proposal obliged

If there is a company where I would like to work, then it is the one with experimentation and growth mind set. It will earn my loyalty.
Hold my engineer degree.

As a manager you might complain about the time spent. As an Agile practitioner I would answer that competitors might outperform your company by learning and teaching.

In summary hire people with ability to learn and ability to teach test automation.
Thank you for your attention.

Okay time for the legal stuff.

Disclaimer: I have no experience with this approach to escape the consultant trap. I did not do any research. But I do welcome feedback.

According to me this proposal is agile. You learn and adapt. Luckily agile is in high demand.
Say Cheese.

Disclosure: at the moment of publication I wa jobless, so I was biased.