Remote Support Access

For a while, I've been looking for a way of improving support to customers. If a customer is confused by a feature or we can't understand the problem they are trying to describe things can be difficult. The only real way to move forward in such situations is to see what the customer is actually doing on their PC. Site visits are not really possible - for cost reasons if nothing else - so I've been looking for a way of sharing PC desktops remotely over the internet.

Discussions with friends raised a number of possibilities - Webex, Windows Invite a Friend and NetViewer were mentioned. The cheapest options is Windows Invite a Friend - it comes free with Windows XP and Windows Vista. I tried it our on a pair of PCs in our office but found that:

1. You have to explain to the client/ customer how to get the service going and send an invite for support.
2. The help pages linked from XP's help are no longer present on Microsoft's website.

Both of these points make me wary of using Invite a Friend - they wouldn't make SliQTools look professional.

So I took at NetViewer. This seems a reasonable service - the cost is good and the service works well. The support technician sends an invite to the customer, the customer downloads a small client program (linked from the support invite email) and gives access to his PC to the support person.

To see an alternative, I took a look at LogMeIn Rescue. This turned out to be the Rolls-Royce remote support service. It's a really good package, working more smoothly and with a more professional, friendly feel for the technician and customer. The only downside is the cost - 4 times that of NetViewer. Overall though, I think you get what you pay for and LogMeIn Rescue seems like a good choice.

What makes a good software tester?

Good software testers are a rare breed. There are also different sorts of testing and often a person can be good at one kind of testing but not at another. Here are some basic tips for choosing testers:

Don’t rely on a single person to do all the testing

Relying on a single person is putting all your eggs into one basket. You’re just asking for trouble. It’s very easy to get bored while testing and one person will, perhaps without realising it, miss important tests or features.

Don’t rely on the product developers to do all the testing

The product developers are simply too close to the product to see the wood for the trees. They will know the product back to front and will use the product features in the way they expect the features will be used. The product developers may not test the product in ways it will end up getting used by real customers.

Don’t rely on external developers to evaluate features

Using external people is good. They won’t be so familiar with the product. Using other developers though isn’t ideal. They are so computer literate they will, probably subconsciously, work around difficulties or things which might not be obvious to less savvy users.

Use women as well as men

Women often make very good testers. Women can be better than men at working in a detailed way. In my experience they are also less embarrassed in asking for help about something they don’t understand. This is a key skill for testers. The worst thing that can happen is a feature gets into the field, a problem occurs, and you find it was spotted in testing but not reported because the tester worked around the difficulty.

What’s a Software Bug?

If you ask this question to a software developer, you might get the answer …

"One man’s bug is another man’s feature"

Not everyone’s a software developer though, some people actually pay money for software and are called “customers”. Customers take a different view. They might say:

"This bug makes me not want to buy your software"

… or, perhaps worse …

"I wish I’d never bought this software"

There is a class of problem which everyone will agree is a bug – software developers and customers. These problems usually involve software crashing or refusing to run. To summarise, there are two main types of software bug or problem:-

1. Something doesn’t work the way the user expects (or wants).
2. Under certain conditions the software crashes and stops working.

By performing thorough testing of software before releasing it to customers, the number both types of problem can be minimised. If you want to sell software, conducting a proper and thorough testing phase prior to every release is essential.

To reduce the likelihood of the different types of software issues, different types of testing need to be performed.

To eliminate type 1, detailed step-by-step testing of the software needs to be performed. For small software development products or teams, thorough black box testing should suffice. This means that all features of the software should be exercised with a range of possible data and inputs to see if any problems occur.

To eliminate type 2, beta testing must be performed. Beta testing involves asking people outside the development team (or even company) to evaluate the features to see how useful and usable they are.

Testing going well

Testing went well yesterday. Found few problems compared to the previous day.

All in all the new release is looking good and stable. Decided to make some last-minute cosmetic changes. Now all I need to do is update the help file before letting the beta testers loose.

I had a couple of potential customers asking about features. One needs a different invoice format. He loves the software but needs a different invoice template. It's reassuring that he liked the software enough to ask for an update rather than move on to try out someone else's package. Luckily the next version will include multiple invoice templates so I can give the customer what he wants. I emailed him PDFs from SliQ 1.4 and he OKed one of them as being suitable. Should get a sale with any luck.

Testing is hard work

Today I'm testing a major new release of software. The test/ review phase has been ongoing for about 3 weeks. We've been doing rounds of test interspersed with rounds of independent review by Sue the director.

I don't find testing very interesting. These days I find it hard to concentrate for more than 20 minutes and the temptation to tweak and improve is fairly irresistible.

If I'm lucky I'll get about 6 clear hours today to concentrate on testing. If we can clear the testing soon we should be able to release for beta test within the next fortnight.

My biggest distraction is the internet. I'd get along better if BT cut me off.