Chapter 4Find Interesting Variations

Once upon a time, I was interviewing a tester. I showed him a screen mockup and asked him what kinds of things he would want to test. He listed four or five scenarios he’d try. Then he leaned back in his chair and nodded to himself. “Yup,” he said, “That’d do it.”

He didn’t get the job.

It’s not that the four or five things he listed were somehow lacking. They weren’t. He had good ideas. The problem was that he was completely satisfied with his answer. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t even leave open the possibility that there was something he hadn’t considered. He signaled clearly that he was done.

Even in a relatively simple system, there are an infinite number of variations to explore, including ...

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