Hand Crafted
This holiday season has been unusual for me. Having just purchased our first home, we get the chance to host Christmas dinner! While I'm excited about it, it is expensive to make dinner for 15 people while putting up out of town guests, and we didn't have any decorations for the outside of our home, so that added expense as well. Then our cat got very ill and almost died, requiring many emergency vet visits and both cars unexpectedly needed repair. As a result, I didn't have as much budget as I would like for gifts this year, so had to think of a strategy.
I heard about hand made gifts, and love to give unique presents. I'd assumed that I could not save any money by getting hand crafted items. As a hobby, I design and make knitwear, so I know how expensive and time consuming it is to make things, especially here in the US where the supply costs are so high. I stumbled across Etsy.com and found some absolutely amazing gifts. Not only were they unique, but they were thoughtful, personal, and some created by true artists.Yes, some items were really costly, but I ended up spending an average of $23 each on many amazing gifts I gave the first one to a friend last night and she was blown away! I know she will remember and treasure it so much more than if I'd given her a $25 gift card to someplace.
So, what does this have to do with testing? Well, hand crafted testing may not cost as much as you think. There are situations where you just need the cheapest thing, or where you need some testing that isn't practical to make by hand. For example, an iPod. However, it is more meaningful and useful if it has a hand crafted cover and a song list you created for that person. How the person getting it will feel is different, because it really is customized for them from someone who cares.
How the people using your software feel about using it is vital. That is where your reputation as a software company comes from. It can not be trusted to robots. It should not be trusted to someone who doesn't take personal pride in the quality of it. I will always prefer an naturally talented tester who sincerely cares over a burned out person with the best education and "skills list" than you can imagine. It doesn't matter if you can write circles of code around another guy, have a doctorate degree, are a published author, a well known expert, or have dozens of patents if you have no personal investment in the results. You can't fake caring, and it is required to do an excellent job. You can do a mediocre job without it, but I've never seen someone do a great job without passion.
My point is, there is still a place for artistic hand crafted testing. Yes, you can go buy the cheapest mass-produced thing on sale at any department store, but you don't end up with the same result, and you lose most of the experience in the process. In addition, you lose the artists who move on to do something that is more valued. That is a loss that is difficult to replace. This is why there is a resurgence of crafts and do-it-yourself trends lately. People are tired of the assembly line or pre-packaged products. They want to express themselves.
So, here you go, yet another blog about why non-quantifiable data matters.
This is from a smart device so it be shorter. Tomorrow an important meeting for a job; minimum wage: I just want to work, it's day 93 of unemployment and I feel as if in jail. Yuck! Never been there and never will am located on the opposite side. Rule enforcer.
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