I Represent the User! And We All Do

As a tester, I try to represent the interests of users. Saying the user, in the singular, feels like a trap to me. There are usually lots of users, and they tend to have diverse and sometimes competing interests. I’d like to represent and highlight the interests of users that might have been forgotten or overlooked.

There’s another trap, though. As Cem Kaner has pointed out, it’s worth remembering that practically everyone else on the team represents the interests of end users in some sense. “End users want this product in a timely way at a reasonable price, so let’s get things happening on schedule and on budget,” say the project managers. “End users like lots of features,” say the marketers. “End users want this specific feature right away,” say the sales people. “End users want this feature optimized like I’m making it now,” say the programmers. I’d be careful about claiming that I represent the end user—and especially insinuating that I’m the only one who does—when lots of other people can credibly make that claim.

Meanwhile, I aspire to test and find problems that threaten the value of the product for anyone who matters. That includes anyone who might have an interest in the success of the product, like managers and developers, of course. It also includes anyone whose interests might have been forgotten or neglected. Technical support people, customer service representatives, and documentors spring to mind as examples. There are others. Can you think of them? People who live in other countries or speak other languages, whether they’re end users or business partners or colleagues in remote offices, are often overlooked or ignored.

All of the people in our organization play a role in assuring quality. I can assure the quality of my own work, but not of the product overall. For that reason, it seems inappropriate to dub myself and my testing colleagues as “quality assurance”. The “quality assurance” moniker causes no end of confusion and angst. Alas, not much has changed over the last 35 years or so: no one, including the most of the testing community, seems willing to call testers what they are: testers.

That’s a title I believe we should wear proudly and humbly. Proudly, because we cheerfully and diligently investigate the product, learning deeply about it where most others merely prod it a little. Humbly, because we don’t create the product, design it, code it, or fix it if it has problems. Let’s honour those who do that, and not make the over-reaching claim that we assure the quality of their work.