The Importance of Questioning worked

I was been into my uncle's home yesterday. He was been into share markets and going through the shares websites. He was provided with a website to check his status that day. He is a frequent user of firefox. He realized that the website 

1. Is unable to display the content on the right side when the link is clicked.

2. unable to show hand icon when hovered on the text.

He called me and told me to rectify the problem he got.

I went through the website and questioned him the following questions:

Q: Asked by me A : answered by Uncle.

Q : Since when you have got this problem?

A : I just opened the website today and unable to open the links.

Q : Have you called the website provider ans asked about this problem?

A : Yes. He told me everything is fine and all are using but no one reported the problem

Q : Have you installed a new version of Firefox or any other software?

A : No.

Q: Have you tried it on internet Explorer?

A :No

I have done this following steps:

1. I  updated Firefox to the latest version.

2. Checked for the antivirus update and run the scan.

3. Entered the same website to check whether the problem exists. And It exists.

Then I thought it would may  be compatibility problem and entered the same website in the internet explorer 6 uncle is using.

And yes. The website is compatible with Internet Explorer and not with Firefox.

I told him the website is not compatible with Firefox and use the website in Internet Explorer and I updated the IE to IE 8.

The questioning has worked for me and it worked for many testers

My own Testing Session.

I thought to have my own testing session after ajay demonstrated virtual keyboard application which happened to be in weekend testing for further testing. As I also participated in that WT, and while installing for testing I struck with the anti-virus which didn't proceed further as the anti-virus software I am using called it a Trojan.
Coming to my own Testing Session, I took VLC media player portable as an appication to test. My mission is to know the menus and icons present in the player. I kept time limit of 1 hour to test the application.The following observations I have made while testing :

Mission : To explore Menu itmes in VLC media player portable application downloaded from portableapps.com

Date and time : 4th February 5 : 45 Pm

End time : 6 : 45 pm

Tester : Vamshi

Test Environment : windows xp sp 2 , VLC portable version 1.1.2 The Luggage as displayed in Help > About VLC

Notes :

a . Media  : 

 1) Clicking on media and clicking on open file with the shortcut provided ctrl + O.  opens to select a file from the hard disk.

 2) opening advanced open file with the short cut ctrl + shift + o .opens media in file, disc,network and capture device.

 3) opening file in advanced mode by clicking on add button and selected a .doc  file throws an error:
No suitable decoder module:

VLC does not support the audio or video format "undf". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this.

issue: Selected .doc extension and the error message showing format "undf"

4) issue : we can edit the file name in the advanced open file after adding the file by clicking on add.

5) issue: when wrong formats are added and error message is thrown up and other playable audio format added the selected file

is not added at the top of the selection box.

6) issue : clicking on '?'(help) wrong  mark and unable to take the help.

7) we can select the subtitles file but no help is displayed which file format should be selected

8) clicking on the show more options displays more options. Unable to get what is Edit options :dvdnav-caching=300

9 ) clicking on network option in advance options. It has a text bos where we can enter an url and view the videos or audio

10) Clicking on Capture device . Has options Direct Show,  DVB direct show, and desktop mode. Unable to move forward as their is no idea about this modes and no help.

11) The advance open file sub menus are repeated again in main Media menu. Then what's the need for advance open file option?

12) checking the menus are opening with the shortcuts provided and it works fine.


13)clicking on  open through clipboard option in media menu displays a test box to copy an url.

issue : No url pasted and clicked on play button shows enter url and closes the textbox.

14 ) clicking on recent media and selecting a file plays well.

b. playback menu :

1. clicking on playback displays menu items where i) previous and ii) next sub menus are enabled and remaining are displayed.
 

Lessons learned :

1. Unable to test the remaining menu items in this session as I keep concentrated on Media menu and little bit on playlist menu.

2. Forgot to take the screen shots. 

3. Came to know Focus - Defocus heuristic from Ajay after this session.

Any feedback on my own testing session are welcome and on how to practice  Quick and Shallow, Slow and Deep in comment section

Next blogpost on testing session  on Adobe Reader soon :)

prudent tester