Intellyx BrainBlog for Apica by Jason Bloomberg
Part Four of the Humanizing Software Quality Series from Intellyx, for Apica
In part 1 and part 2 of this series, Jason English established user journeys as the essential goal of software testing efforts and explained why user journeys are so difficult to test.
In part 3, I brought APIs into the human equation, connecting APIs to the user experience (UX) even for modern digital applications.
In this conclusion of the series, I’ll expand this story into the future, as modern trends like the Internet of Things (IoT) and the metaverse promise to once again revolutionize the nature of applications and the experiences people have when interacting with such modern software landscapes.
The Need for Better UX Testing is all around Us
There’s a joke going around modern automobile circles that the easiest way to update your car’s clock for Daylight Time is to wait six months until it’s correct again.
This joke’s underlying truth is undeniable: despite all the fancy and sophisticated IoT functionality in today’s automobiles, their digital UX is painfully difficult to interact with.
What’s going on here? The safety and regulatory requirements for automobile manufacture set the bar for software quality in our vehicles. To be sure, on-car software rarely crashes, and software failures that lead to accidents or other safety issues are even less common.
Why, then, is the digital UX in new cars so abysmal?
The answer is straightforward. Vehicle manufacturers do not sufficiently test for the entire UX – what we call the user journey. Instead, they test by component: the clock is OK, the radio works, the backup camera functions properly, etc. Behind the scenes, the APIs that support such functionality, both on the car and in the cloud, pass tests as well.
What’s missing is a holistic, user-centered perspective on testing that connects the UX to the various software components and APIs across the entire scope of human interactions – video, audio, tactile, motion, and any others relevant to the problem at hand.
Read the entire BrainBlog here.
