ITx 2016 Conference Programme

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The ITx 2016 Programme may change without notice

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Design Led Testing

Tuesday 3:20pm - 3:50pm, TPN Testing Day (TPN Testing Room)

Over the past few years I’ve been thinking a lot about User Acceptance Testing and how well, we as a practice have been executing this. Using ideas based in design thinking and the UX community I began to understand that testing could add immense value before a line of code had been written. My presentation will explain my thoughts and ideas about understand our users and their needs. This can be broken down into 3 areas: 1) Practicing empathy to connect and understand our users. 2) Asking the right questions to understand the context in which a user relates to our business or software and 3) Research based on both quantitative and qualitative methods.

I also want to clear up the myth that you need to be a designer in order to be able to use design thinking. I will do this by explaining what design thinking is and how we can use it to find more innovative solutions to common problems. This is aided by ideation that goes beyond the obvious low hanging fruit ideas and breaks into the more outrageous, innovative ideas that can lead to something truly new and delightful.

Finally I want to challenge where UAT sits in the current testing process and introduce the concept of ‘User Confirmation Testing’. By validating the software without invalidating the end user and their experience, we can produce software that solves the right problems for our users and avoid frustrations.

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Speaker

Stephanie Wilson

Quality Assurance Team Lead, Xero

Working in IT product development for over 8 years, Stephanie has been focused on helping deliver quality outcomes through research, analysis and testing.

Most recently she used her skills and experience to uncover insights about user behaviour that can be used to help deliver beautiful experiences.

Part of this work includes workshop facilitation with development teams, user interviews, usability testing (both face to face and remote), baseline testing and presenting information back in a meaningful way.

Testing has taken Stephanie around the world, to Australia, the UK, Spain, Malta, Germany and Israel.

She works for Xero as a QA Team Lead but says that doesn’t mean she doesn't get her hands dirty.