[webproducers] Re: persuading a project manager that formal testing is important???


>Radical Counterpoint: If it's commercial software the first release
>will be expected to have bugs. In addition since you don't yet know
>your user base it may be hard to measure which features are important,
>and which ones may be dropped.

There are ways to find out about that (contextual inquiry, market 
research), which means you will save money by developing less useless 
features. This is why user testing saves money.

>Also if it's a first release chances are
>most people aren't even paying for the damn thing so their expectations
>are rather low

I would argue against that these days - the same way people expect *all* 
movies to have Hollywood-like production values, they expect their software 
not to crash or be really buggy. And: do you want your brand burned? That 
nice brand you invested so much in?

>In fact trying to "get it right" may cause the product to be late and
>screw up marketing.

I guess this is a classic argument against testing. But testing and user 
research techniques will keep your development time and cost *down*. 
Strange, isn't it? Every experienced developer will tell you this.
PeterV


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