STARWEST 2016 - Personal Excellence
Thursday, October 6
Story Time for Testers
Stories help us learn. They can be fun or scary, exciting or relaxing. People worldwide tell and listen to stories. We access them through books, film, TV, and computers. But direct, face-to-face storytelling is still a powerful experience. When Isabel Evans was young, there was a program on the radio called Listen with Mother. For fifteen minutes, mothers and children across the land would sit and listen to a story. Join Isabel and become your younger child, bring your testing parent, and listen to her stories. In fifteen minute sections, Isabel recounts stories...
The Tester’s Role: Balancing Technical Acumen and User Advocacy
Ten years ago, many of us started our careers in testing, generally moving from a different internal role. It was common for people who were product users to be hired to jump start their technical career. Now, we see the growth of tester positions that require coding experience or a computer science degree. Melissa Tondi discusses the changing landscape of the role of testers, the challenges when hiring developers with no previous testing experience, and a way to shift the pendulum back to balance technical acumen with a user advocacy role. Melissa leads a...