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There's a big difference between blackbox testing and whitebox testing. For blackbox testing, having someone who doesn't now the inner workings of the system to
by Too 14y ago
There's a big difference between blackbox testing and whitebox testing. For blackbox testing, having someone who doesn't now the inner workings of the system to find workarounds can many times be an advantage.
Of course you should do both kinds for security critical projects.
- scott_w 14y agoI'm not arguing for black/white box testing, I'm arguing that for testing to have real value, your tester needs to behave in a similar manner to a real user. That way you find the gap between your own understanding and your users' understanding of the system. Take a concrete example: a piece of medical equipment prints off reports. If your tester has no medical knowledge, he doesn't have a frame of reference to know if the numbers are correct or not. He's also more inclined to use it exactly how you specify. A real doctor would bring his own experience of similar equipment and try to use it in ways you didn't think of. In addition, he will be able to gauge whether the reports "look right".
- nicolasedgwick 14y agoVery good example! And there is an absolutely huge correlation between good testing and domain experience irrespective of freelance/permanent. I've seen entire teams of permanent testers miss critical bugs because they're busy stressing the system and trying edge cases but don't actually use it like a user because they don't know their users.