Taking Testing Seriously

CHAPTER 13Rapid Usability Testing

—By Torbjörn Ryber

It is the Easter holiday, and I am currently on vacation with my family. We are skiing for the weekend. As the family's main planner and travel administrator, I need to get ski passes for the four of us. We waited until the last minute to choose which passes to buy due to the unusually unstable weather and the ambivalence of teenagers. The decision lands on a two-day pass. The resort has an app with a weather forecast, information on what slopes and lifts are open, and, of course, the shop where you spend your money on ski passes and rental skis.

I open the app on my iPhone and select our resort. There are six resorts to choose from, and it's easy to make the initial selection. I continue to the page for buying ski passes and find three ski pass cards already registered from the last trip. Since we are avid skiers, I have a stash of cards at home, and, as it turns out, I have managed to bring two of the ones already registered. I proceed to unregister the missing card and register two additional ones to make a total of four. Some of the cards are a few years old, and the alphanumeric code is hard or impossible to read. Luckily, the app has a function for scanning the cards by holding them to the back of your phone. After they are uploaded into the app, I label them with the names of the family members. (This personalization makes it easier to get a replacement card if one is lost.)

Since I want to take a cross-country tour ...