When rethinking your test approach, it can be difficult to come up with creative, new test ideas or a fresh angle towards your 'Application Under Test', while being stuck in your own good old mind. To overcome this I often take a role-playing approach to spur new testing ideas; stepping into somebody elses shoes can free whole new thought processes, give you new directions and additional viewpoints. I'd like to talk about a couple of methods you can (mis)use for this, like the 'persona' representation used in user-centered design, Edward de Bono's idea of 'Six Thinking Hats', the four-user model mentioned in James Whittaker's 'How to Break Software' and my own "What would?" approach. Presented on 04th July 2015 at the Cambridge Exploratory Workshop on Testing (http://cewtblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/cewt-1-testing-ideas.html)

1. What would somebody else do?
Something else?
Trigger testing ideas using role playing
CEWT #1, 04/07/2015 by Karo Stoltzenburg (Twitter, LinkedIn)

2. Some background
In testing, it can be difficult to
• come up with new, creative test ideas
• gain a different angle and view point
• review and rethink your test approach with a fresh mind while
• not missing the forest for the trees
• and keeping focused on important use cases, risk factors, test coverage etc.
Role playing can help, as
• stepping into somebody else’s shoes can free whole new thought processes
• naturally gives you new directions and additional viewpoints
• different context spurs different test ideas
• It’s also a very lightweight and easy method, as it accommodates our
universal anthropomorphic tendencies (empathy, memory, identification)

3. Some table of content, approaches, roles
• (Stereo)types of users: ‘Persona’
• Team members: ‘What would … ?’
• Focus of users: Thinking Hats
• The software’s point of view
Disclaimer
I’m (mis)using a few (well known) methods for the role-playing approach - I don’t intend to give an
accurate description or claim that this is necessarily their intended use…

4. (Stereo)types of users: ‘Persona’
• Helps with:
• Defining scenarios and use cases, user-centred design
• Transparency of decision making (based on targeted demographic)
• Shared better understanding and empathy about customers
• Use how:
• Base personas on empirical data, statistics, surveys, target demographic
• Invent fictitious, memorable characters to represent user types of your
product
• Create (positive) narratives, press-releases, scenarios, soap-operas
• Consider needs, behaviour, context, limitations of targeted user(s) groups

5. Users might differ regarding:
• type, e.g. buyer, seller, admin
• new, irregular, frequent user
• technological experience
• abilities, knowledge
• level of patience, benevolence
• cultural background (encodings,
data format (names, addresses),
socialisation)
© 2011 Chris Nodder Consulting LLC
(Stereo)types of users: ‘Persona’ (II)

6. Team members: ‘What would … ?’
• Helps with:
• Identify scenarios and use cases
• Evaluation of risk, test coverage
• Setting priorities when time pressed, needing to be pragmatic
• Use how:
• Consider other members of the team involved in the project, e.g.:
• Developer: What was likely tested? What environment are they on? Which
areas of expertise do they (not) have?
• Business Development: What will they showcase? What does Marketing
mention about the feature? Which resources would they use?
• Tester: What would other tester with other testing styles possibly do?

7. Focus of users: Thinking Hats
• Term coined by Edward de Bono
(1967)
• A group discussion technique,
but can used individually as well
• Apply a variety of angles, based
on distinct thinking directions of
the brain
• In collaboration – all apply the
same technique, time boxed

8. Focus of users: Thinking Hats (II)
• Helps with:
• Breaking out of the usual mind set, thinking into a different direction
• Decision making, problem solving, planning
• Decision making, evaluation while in interaction with the AUT
• Use how:
• Rather indirectly as role, however imagining a specific person (or a wearing a
hat) can help ease into types of thinking
• Combine with types from personality psychology (Thinking, Feeling, Sensing,
Intuition) or temperaments (Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic)

9. The software’s point of view
• Helps with:
• Coming up with ideas on testing system interactions
• Stress and performance testing
• Integration and configuration testing
• Getting away from the “User types into keyboard” context
• Flexibility and creativity, thinking out of the box
• How to apply it:
• The software is a person, too!
• Try to imagine who communicates with the product? With parts of it? How?
• What kind of communication might stress it, might be too much? Where does it
need to be protected?
• In which context does the software operate (operating system, file system, network)
• In which world does the software live (time zones, temperature, distance)

10. References / Further Reading
• James A. Whittaker: How to Break Software: A Practical Guide to
Testing (2002)
• Michael Bolton: How Models Change (2014)
• Hans Buwalda: Soap Opera Testing (2004)
• Cem Kaner: An Introduction to Scenario Testing (2003)
• C.G. Jung: Psychologische Typen / Psychological Types
• Edward de Bono: Six Thinking Hats (1985)
• AskDefine: Persona

11. Thanks!
• Any questions?
• Interested in trying it out?