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I think there's much more to it than what the post says. It seems the author is looking at the freelance testing industry (is 'industry' the right word here?) t

I think there's much more to it than what the post says. It seems the author is looking at the freelance testing industry (is 'industry' the right word here?) through rose colored glasses. Freelance web designers and SEOs are everywhere because you don't need any experience and often times don't even require any actual skill to do the job. All you need to know is how to repeat the whole "Social media marketing your business reach customers user experience blah blah nonsense" spiel and people say "Yeah! I want to miraculously reach the top of Google for everything and make a billion online like Zuck" and hire some dude for $300 who read "HTML and CSS for Dummies" last week at a Barnes and Noble. I know this because I used to be that asshole (not the business owner, the freelancer). Other kinds of web/tech freelancing have very simple-to-understand values. In the minds of a lot of people who hire freelancers, Web design = Branding or Marketing = Profits. Simple. Not exactly correct, but that's the line being fed to everyone these days. Same with SEO. SEO = Rankings = $1B profit. Testing is different though. I have to say however that if a company even needs to test software to begin with then they're probably playing at a higher level than the companies hiring freelance designer/devs and SEOs. Still, the value of a tester is still nebulous. You don't hear freelance testers out there drilling "Testing will make your customers love to use your product, increase efficiency on yours and the customer's end, and save you a ton of money" or something equally easy to market. To most businesses testing means "we played with the app on the staging server and it worked fine for us. time to push it live". It just comes off as an extra expense that isn't worth the investment. And why is that? Because freelance testers, unlike other freelancers, have failed to create a consistent, marketable appeal to business owners (i.e. tell them why it's going to make them tons of cash) the way other freelancers have. And it's probably because those who do testing are a little more thoughtful and less about pizazz and flash than designer/developers and the nature of testing itself is kind of boring unless you're really into it yourself. Design is fun because everyone wants to be an artist. SEO is fun because people are given the idea they're in control of which keywords they'll pop up for and such. Testing? Totally boring. Some guy's gonna come in here and find bugs in our software? We can do that ourselves or just make sure to mark all the complaint emails as TODOs in Gmail.

mgkimsal 14y ago
you're very rarely going to 'make' someone money - you're going to save them money. A well-tested app doesn't necessarily out-sell the competition if the competition gets a better distribution deal through 'good old boys' networking. Demonstrably bad software often becomes dominant in specific niches, and people put up with the bugs, because "it's what everyone uses". Your well-tested software still has a huge marketing battle and possibly integration issues to replace incumbents, regardless of how many bugs they have. You end up needing to create a negative campaign about the headaches and hassles of using XYZ, and that you don't have those issues (because it's well-tested, but you generally can't promote that to most people, as it's 'too technical').
- doktrin 14y ago
  At first, I thought you were preaching to the converted, here. Whether or not everyone here uses dedicated testers, they probably all appreciate the value of a well tested system. In theory, that is in fact the case, but reflecting on my experience this is not usually the case in practice. Testing is dropped by the wayside when the rubber meets the road - particularly in any early to mid stage ventures. IMHO there is a strong cultural component at play. Testers are, quite frankly, second class citizens in the land of software. This is due in part to the ambiguity of the term itself, as it can mean everything from a button-clicker to an engineer (with perception often defaulting to the former). As a result, testing becomes unsexy. Few developers with options choose to do it full time, and it becomes an afterthought. Even dev-centric approaches like TDD get brushed off as "crutches" for "junior" engineers. This all helps propagate a fairly downward-tending cycle of testers and testing lacking voice and status within the organization.
ssong 14y ago
I think you make a great point about perceived value of testing vs SEO/design. However, with the increased proliferation of downloading software through app stores, which favors apps with better reviews/ratings, the perceived value of testing should increase. For example, take a look at apps with mixed or low ratings on the AppStore and most of them will contain complaints about bugs in the app. (random point + small shameless plug: I founded http://www.testelf.com http://www.testelf.com as flat priced testing service for iOS apps)

mgkimsal 14y ago

you're very rarely going to 'make' someone money - you're going to save them money. A well-tested app doesn't necessarily out-sell the competition if the competition gets a better distribution deal through 'good old boys' networking. Demonstrably bad software often becomes dominant in specific niches, and people put up with the bugs, because "it's what everyone uses". Your well-tested software still has a huge marketing battle and possibly integration issues to replace incumbents, regardless of how many bugs they have. You end up needing to create a negative campaign about the headaches and hassles of using XYZ, and that you don't have those issues (because it's well-tested, but you generally can't promote that to most people, as it's 'too technical').

doktrin 14y ago
At first, I thought you were preaching to the converted, here. Whether or not everyone here uses dedicated testers, they probably all appreciate the value of a well tested system. In theory, that is in fact the case, but reflecting on my experience this is not usually the case in practice. Testing is dropped by the wayside when the rubber meets the road - particularly in any early to mid stage ventures. IMHO there is a strong cultural component at play. Testers are, quite frankly, second class citizens in the land of software. This is due in part to the ambiguity of the term itself, as it can mean everything from a button-clicker to an engineer (with perception often defaulting to the former). As a result, testing becomes unsexy. Few developers with options choose to do it full time, and it becomes an afterthought. Even dev-centric approaches like TDD get brushed off as "crutches" for "junior" engineers. This all helps propagate a fairly downward-tending cycle of testers and testing lacking voice and status within the organization.

ssong 14y ago

I think you make a great point about perceived value of testing vs SEO/design. However, with the increased proliferation of downloading software through app stores, which favors apps with better reviews/ratings, the perceived value of testing should increase. For example, take a look at apps with mixed or low ratings on the AppStore and most of them will contain complaints about bugs in the app. (random point + small shameless plug: I founded http://www.testelf.com http://www.testelf.com as flat priced testing service for iOS apps)