STAREAST 2003 - Software Testing Conference

This article discusses some of the challenges that testers face and how to overcome them. It also explains why it's important to conduct an analysis of the possible ways
in which a system could fail, and how to structure the testing to mitigate the most significant of those failures.

In 1963, IBM found about 80 percent of a computer's time was spent executing only computer's 20 percent of the instructions, which was a counter-intuitive breakthrough at the time. IBM rewrote the operating system to make the 20 percent faster and easier to use, improving computer performance. RISC computing is based on this principle as well. Web traffic also follows the Pareto Principle, with 10 percent of web sites having 90 percent of traffic.

Testers should be encouraged to test against and report deviations from implicit specifications. There is a Universal Implicit Specification that is based on
fundamental principles. These principles are: the system will not lie, the system will impose no gratuitous keyholes or other constraints, and the system won’t do anything that’s just plain stupid.It’s worthwhile to identify, elaborate, and make explicit the fundamental principles and
common manifestations of deviations from these principles.

This article discusses testing for Section 508 and WCAG Accessibility compliance. It explains what Section 508 is and what it means for your testing group.