QA testing

So, my friend has gotten me an interview for an entry level QA position. I have no QA experience, but I'm a fast learner.

They want me to download their product, and make a test case for them. I am googling for tips on what all I should do, but if there are any QA testers here, I'd be very appreciative if you could give me tips on how to go about doing a test case.

My understanding is that you specify a function you want to test in the software. You then state your expected outcome. You detail every step that you take to execute that function, and then note the end result, highlighting any unexpected results.

Am i on the right track?

Thank you!

yo, i am an official QA analyst. i'm supposed to be testing right now, in fact, but i'm watmming instead. they only want one test case? that's pretty light. test cases are usually very small, boring things in practice. they are kinda stylistic too, and can be exhaustingly formal or short and casual, for example

1. log into watmm anonymously

2. observe active user list

expected: user is not listed in the active user list

vs

1. navigate to forum.watmm.com

2. click the sign in link in the upper right.

3. enter username.

4. enter password.

5. check the "sign in anonymously" checkbox.

6. click sign in.

7. observe active user list.

etc. depends on your audience. since yours is a potential employer i'd go the detailed route, maybe, i guess. my company is small and chill and i'm the only tester and if i actually write test casesdown, i'm usually the one executing them so i go the short route.

that first example would be a "positive" test case: one that tests a feature and expects it to work. a "negative" case is one that tries to break shit, like

1. create a new post.

2. type in html.

3. submit.

4. view post.

expected: post content is encoded such that html is not parsed by the browser.

creativity and curiousity are probably the most-valued traits in a tester, as well as patience and methodicalness, since it can be tedious. so try to be creatively malicious with your test cases as well as mundane and practical. :)

learn a bit about automated testing. there are some extremely advanced scripts out there that specialise in supplying every possible input to a process and seeing where it dies. it's pretty fashionable at the moment (but will never surpass good old human UI interaction).

not terribly necessary for entry-level with no experience ;)

oh and then bug reports are basically just test cases with "actual result" along with "expected result" and some things like severity, priority, and environment.

often in interviews you'll get a question like "how would you test a calculator?" or "how would you test a microwave?" or even cheeky shit like pencils and staplers. so it might be helpful to think about that, and be ready to pop off stuff quickly, like "press each number and very that the correct number is displayed back. try to enter more than the maximum cook time. press cancel while it's running. open the door while it's running. unplug it while it's running. microwave 10 glasses of water for 1 minute each, measure their temperatures, compare against spec." shit like that.

Cool, thanks guys! Hopefully my time as a coffee jerk has come to an end...

good luck. we tend to "grow" our entry level testers, so you really just have to demonstrate that you are confident on a computer and you can think and communicate in an organised and clear way.

any thoughts on salary ranges?

i had a summer job doing QA once. my boss was like, you need a phone and more ram. talk to [iT dude]. [iT dude] is like, yeah, [some chick] is away for six months, just take her phone, lift the ram out of her box. so i do. but it turns out, i had the wrong cube. it wasn't [some chick]'s box. it was some test platform. my boss goes off like a purple-headed dick, but thankfully not at me -- at [iT dude]. yelling on the phone. you're stockpiling phones. why did you tell him that. bullshit! etc...

it was a really crappy job, but at least it paid well. i forget what exactly, but i'm sure i blew it on synthesizers and debauchery.

i made $14/hr when i was an entry-level game tester. it was my first job ever. there was another dude on my team with the same degree as me (BS comp sci), and he let it slip that he made $11.25/hr though, so who knows wtf. we were working at microsoft through a temp agency, so who knows what sorts of arcane negotiations went on between them to figure out our wages. i'd like to say that i had an impressive interview, but mostly it was just the boss talking about how boring and lame the game is that i'd be testing, and that his primary concern was that they acquire pros who don't expect to just have fun playing sweet games and get paid for it.

i make substantially more these days.

that was in 2006 btw

testing is superfluous. just write perfect code. problem solved.