When we think about the term 'creativity', you may think of crayons, pens, paints, music studios and notepads among other things. Testing may not be what you would think of as being creative however, in this post I attempt to make the case that Testing can be one of the most creative roles one could have and I also respond to criticisms in relation to the 'robotic' nature of the role.
Testing by its very nature demands creativity. Any passionate Tester will have thought about the different ways they can approach the application they are testing. They would have traversed off into the unknown crevices of the code, just wondering what could possibly be waiting for them. A mind filled with 'what-ifs and 'ooo what was that?' type of questions. Wearing different hats, looking at things from the end users perspective, considering the business objectives and just exploring the thing tested, learning and taking notes. Trying to figure out who they need to speak to in order get specific information. This is all part of Testing and requires a lot of creativity.
Often times however, Testers are not empowered. We are only ever reminded of our responsibility when bugs are found in production and things go wrong. The famous "well, who tested it?" line echoes in the minds of those that have been at the end of pointing fingers. Alternatively, we may never get the blame for anything or be even noticed at all, but have been reduced to running test cases written by somebody else, that read like they have been intended for a robot. Managers often want to see nice reports with big shiny green ticks next to each test - shiny ticks of course here mean, the application has ZERO BUGS and is in perfect working order! (I hope you could sense the sarcasm there). Testers are not robots. In environments like these, Testers cannot thrive, and I'd argue that they do not belong in them either.
So, what is the reason for this post and why am I writing about creativity? As Testers we are neither business analysts nor developers. We are not dealing with the end customer directly, and we are also not fixing any bugs. We're kind of in the middle somewhere. Although I'd say that actually we're more 'around the outside' of all these processes as opposed to in the middle somewhere. If you're not a Tester, I know what you're thinking: .."Testers.. Creative?! Ha! How hard could it be?!" - we don't have a great rep. Or a rep at all sometimes. We're just somehow there in the shadows clicking buttons making sure things work - right? ... No!
Back to my reason for this post; well, I stumbled across a comment online in response to somebody asking how successful they could be if they did freelance work as a QA/Tester, because they loved travelling but of course needed to make some money to get by.
The replies in the thread, in general were quite negative and this particular one, need I say, made me quite sad... 😞 (<-- sad James)
Here it is below:
"QA Sucks. Convert to a creative job asap while you are young..."
Uff..
Powerful stuff.
I was sad because though I strongly disagree with this, I am going to assume that this person is speaking from experience and I felt bad for them. I have to admit, I have been on projects that have made me question my career choices however, upon reflection that's never really been because I am a Tester. It's usually down to flaws in processes or gaps in planning on the project.
My response to the comment above is firstly, I have to point out that they have mentioned 'e-commerce' as a creative alternative. Hmm, I don't think we need to provide any arguments against that suggestion, but to address the programming/coding-related options listed as alternatives; I'd say that the majority of the time developers are faced with the problem of the client dictating how the thing you are building needs to behave, look and function. A Product Owner or Project Manager may not give you the option of HOW to come up with a solution, though they may mention 'yeah sure, build it however you wish but just make sure it does this thing exactly as I have described'... basically, 'you can pick any colour as long as it's red'..
Even the developers that freelance are still at the mercy of the client's wants and needs. Many developers do build their own solutions to problems via new applications or starting their own companies and that is great. Creativity thrives here I'm sure. But a lot of companies treat developers as 'resources'. The companies want something and the developers have the skills to build it so do as they say. (By the way, if you are in a company that present you with their requirements but give you complete freedom in how to build it, then stay!)
To summarise my response, programming/coding is very creative but within a context. Testing is the same, however there is less restriction on how we can perform or role because there isn't really a Testing deliverable as a product. This allows us some more room for creativity in my opinion. No client can EVER really tell you how to test, no Manager or business owner. They can contribute and advise but we have to maintain ownership of our Testing and the way we go about doing it. More specifically with clients, all they can really do is tell you want they want and how they want that thing to work. Testers try to ensure those things happen but at no point are told how to do what they do. We do however report on what we do, and should do so in a detailed yet clear way, whether that be via a detailed report on your findings or communicating them effectively to your colleagues/stake holders. Prior to this stage, our creativity is stretched as far as we allow it to be.
Using a search field as an example, the process of building it (or other features) at a high level, is usually:
Client wants a search field (or X feature) -> client tells Business -> Business tells Managers -> Managers tell Developers -> Developers build it -> build gets tested -> released to client
Now, throughout this entire phase we as Testers are involved, learning throughout the entire process. By the time it has been built, we have learnt as much as we possibly can about the context and all the complexities that by the time we actually physically test it we are able to explore the many possibilities. We aren't just going to check that the search field is present, we would explore the application addressing some questions like:
- Location of the search field. The client really needs this thing so is it easily accessible? (we can check this on numerous devices, what about devices that auto zoom into text fields? etc)
- Does it auto-populate results to help with long/complex terms? (can help us determine if it's javascript returning the results or at server level - we can then explore various changes/tests utilising the browser console)
- What results are returned? - Exploring data validation
- What is the source for the information that is returned? Can I access this source by some data injections? can I access server through various methods/attempts
- Should all this information be visible to me? Is there any legislation in the business domain that dictates this? Can I identify values in data which are anonymised?
These are just a few questions, coupled with what we learn during our testing that guide our testing journey on the application. This is part of testing and this demands creativity.
The client never asks for what we test in detail, but we do it because our role as a Tester requires us to get creative. It's like detective work. Again, we wouldn't immediately think of detective work when thinking about creativity.
It is not rare to find Testers pushing their limits with their creativity. Their ideas often push them to go off and learn new programming languages, tools and even build new relationships. Beautiful things happen when people are allowed to be creative, and Testing is no different.
So, no, QA doesn't suck and IS VERY creative, just like many other tech roles, but only IF you are providing your services to people that value your human abilities, as opposed to wanting robots doing their 'testing' *Cough* automation overkill *cough*
If you agree or disagree with anything I have mentioned in this post, please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @webtesthub - I'd be happy to discuss. My views are only based upon my experience and are always subject to change!
