>>Hi,
>>
>> There are only 3 requirements for a good product tester and they are as follows:-
>>
>>1. The ability to think like a blond.
>
>
>Be careful what you say .... you *could* offend someone who's been developing software for 24 year and pretty darn good at it!!

Note the spelling... he said "blond", not "blonde", ergo gender neutral.

>I prefer to approach testing from two perspectives. First, that of the blue-haired lunch lady (meaning she has no clue how to use a computer.) Second, that of a man (meaning he *thinks* he knows what he's doing but really doesn't.) < gd&r >

I don't have the time to that approach, nor for the ham-fisted one: my partner back home tested our apps by lowering a spread palm on the keyboard. You won't believe what sort of things I've found trying it out that way :).

OTOH, a dozen years ago, while I still had the patience to visit (or be an exhibit on) computer fairs, I used to test various apps running on machines on display by simply pressing enter. Half of them crashed :).

But that was then. Nowadays I create a checklist of what the app is supposed to do, then try a few most common user mistakes - but don't go for the exotic combinations. That's the beauty of being an in-house programmer, you only need to make a tool which will have the functionality they want, and make sure the data are right and available. A few bugs here and there can sneak in, and you get to be the hero when you fix them within an hour.