Why hire a tester?

 


So why hire a tester? It really will depend on what the tester would bring to the table. 

In the case of his coffee, if he is asking "will this sell to the masses?" then what he needs is a test of its appeal to the masses. And this means he can't be hiring one, but many testers of that specific taste profile, to get a probable evaluation representative of the target demographic's response.

If he is looking for an evaluation of the coffee's "avant-gardeness" then he would need to employ a coffee connoisseur. With the connoisseur's provable taste grade, one coffee tester will do; but a duo or trio independent of each other would add more depth to the coffee evaluation at hand, providing better results.  

When a Designer tests, he/she will invariably test for design flaws; designers can't help it, it's their thing -- part of their set of heuristics that make them who they are. 

When a CEO runs a test, his/her background (tech or otherwise) will color the choice of test points, and thus color the test results from a CEO's perspective. 

So what does the professional tester bring to the table? 

His/her knowledge of the spectrum of stress levels (from normal to extreme) that the particular product will face out in the real world. His background will invariably color his tests, adding a layer of depth that will be his own signature in the resulting evaluative report. In addition, it is the professional tester's job to assess the risk level involved with each stress in the spectrum, to get a mix of test scenarios that will give an evaluation that will probably be representative of the product's fate in the real world. 

Happy path testing is a developer's job -- in my opinion. When Devs say something is working, that means they have already done happy-path testing. That's it, why bother to repeat it? A professional tester's job is to evaluate how the product will fare in the spectrum of usage stresses and risks, regardless of happy path testing. 

So, back to that cup of coffee. Why hire a tester? If you want an evaluation of the coffee, independent of your own opinion, then hire a tester. 

Everyone knows proofreading your own work is bad practice; your bound to miss something (that's why there's Grammarly and Chatgpt!) In a nutshell, that's why you hire a tester.  



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