Always alert: how important attentiveness
The duty of every specialist is not just the quality performance of his work, but also exceptional attention to the smallest details. And with the tester, this is the foundation of the profession. It is necessary to ignore the smallest nuance - and now, the required level of quality can no longer be achieved. More than once in my profession I had to deal with the fact that mistakes were far from being on the surface - if the mind were a little less inquisitive, it would be unrealistic to catch them. And the more surprised people who can be so attentive that anyone would envy her. Consider a few examples of such people.
I'll start with a story from personal experience. How important can three points be? Sometimes they can completely change the perception of an object. A task was received, which contained the line “No, thanks ...” in the TOR software for OS X. Most experts would not pay attention to it, and the line would remain in its original form. But the guy who worked on the project was a real connoisseur of his business, because in the finished product the inscription was transformed into “No thanks”. When he was asked where the points were, he replied that it would be a mistake to make them, since the three points in OS X traditionally mark the opening of a window, and we close it with a button with this label. Should I talk about how he rose in the eyes of the customer as a professional?
Famous people, who managed to change the world of technology, were notable for attention to detail - Steve Jobs can serve as a vivid example. Although he was not a tester, any professional would envy his attentiveness. Once he called Vika Handotre, a man without whom Google + would not have appeared, and said that he had urgent news that he had already sent his people to Google to help solve this problem by tomorrow. Vic is on his guard - what is the problem that requires such urgency? Did something serious happen? Steve continued - he said that he was looking at the Google logo on the IPhone and was not very happy with what the yellow gradient looks like in the second letter “o”. Once again, clarifying whether the problem can be fixed in the shortest possible time, he said goodbye to Vic, teaching him an excellent lesson about what attention to detail should be. The spice of the story is added by the fact that the call was made on Sunday morning.
The ability to see the smallest nuances is important at all levels of the company and in all areas of business. For example, no matter how well the team works, the product will not be properly sold, if attention to detail is not inherent in its marketer. Let us give an example from a completely non-technical sphere, but, nevertheless, indicative of all areas. Remember the Nestle company logo? Two chicks sitting in the nest and mother bird. Previously, the logo was the same, only there were three chicks. Why did one of them mercilessly thrown out? It is very simple - because of some observant marketer who noticed that it was not good for a bird family to have three children, whereas statistics show that the average number of children in a family is two. In pursuit of proximity to the consumer, the company said goodbye to the unfortunate chick, and, judging by its current position in the market, it only won.
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Details may not always help to improve. Sometimes, on the contrary, if something is not taken into account, the consequences can be catastrophic. One of the smallest, but at the same time, the most well-known programmer's mistakes in history occurred in 1962, when the Mariner-1 spacecraft was launched, which was supposed to go to Venus. But he did not go anywhere, but suffered an accident five minutes after the start. The problem was simple - the programmer, transferring the handwritten code to the software of the device, missed the hyphen (according to other versions - the line above the character, but the essence is the same - he missed only one line). And it was the most expensive hyphen in history - at that time it cost eighteen and a half million dollars. How much would it cost, taking into account inflation - and imagine scary.
Details are important in any activity, and therefore it is important to remember them, no matter whether you are a tester or work in a completely different specialty. Who knows, maybe it is the nuance you noticed that will cause another technical revolution? Or, on the contrary, will lead to unpleasant consequences. In short, be careful if you want to be good specialists.
Three dots
I'll start with a story from personal experience. How important can three points be? Sometimes they can completely change the perception of an object. A task was received, which contained the line “No, thanks ...” in the TOR software for OS X. Most experts would not pay attention to it, and the line would remain in its original form. But the guy who worked on the project was a real connoisseur of his business, because in the finished product the inscription was transformed into “No thanks”. When he was asked where the points were, he replied that it would be a mistake to make them, since the three points in OS X traditionally mark the opening of a window, and we close it with a button with this label. Should I talk about how he rose in the eyes of the customer as a professional?
Shades of yellow
Famous people, who managed to change the world of technology, were notable for attention to detail - Steve Jobs can serve as a vivid example. Although he was not a tester, any professional would envy his attentiveness. Once he called Vika Handotre, a man without whom Google + would not have appeared, and said that he had urgent news that he had already sent his people to Google to help solve this problem by tomorrow. Vic is on his guard - what is the problem that requires such urgency? Did something serious happen? Steve continued - he said that he was looking at the Google logo on the IPhone and was not very happy with what the yellow gradient looks like in the second letter “o”. Once again, clarifying whether the problem can be fixed in the shortest possible time, he said goodbye to Vic, teaching him an excellent lesson about what attention to detail should be. The spice of the story is added by the fact that the call was made on Sunday morning.
Throw out of the nest
The ability to see the smallest nuances is important at all levels of the company and in all areas of business. For example, no matter how well the team works, the product will not be properly sold, if attention to detail is not inherent in its marketer. Let us give an example from a completely non-technical sphere, but, nevertheless, indicative of all areas. Remember the Nestle company logo? Two chicks sitting in the nest and mother bird. Previously, the logo was the same, only there were three chicks. Why did one of them mercilessly thrown out? It is very simple - because of some observant marketer who noticed that it was not good for a bird family to have three children, whereas statistics show that the average number of children in a family is two. In pursuit of proximity to the consumer, the company said goodbye to the unfortunate chick, and, judging by its current position in the market, it only won.
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Hazardous parts
Details may not always help to improve. Sometimes, on the contrary, if something is not taken into account, the consequences can be catastrophic. One of the smallest, but at the same time, the most well-known programmer's mistakes in history occurred in 1962, when the Mariner-1 spacecraft was launched, which was supposed to go to Venus. But he did not go anywhere, but suffered an accident five minutes after the start. The problem was simple - the programmer, transferring the handwritten code to the software of the device, missed the hyphen (according to other versions - the line above the character, but the essence is the same - he missed only one line). And it was the most expensive hyphen in history - at that time it cost eighteen and a half million dollars. How much would it cost, taking into account inflation - and imagine scary.
Details are important in any activity, and therefore it is important to remember them, no matter whether you are a tester or work in a completely different specialty. Who knows, maybe it is the nuance you noticed that will cause another technical revolution? Or, on the contrary, will lead to unpleasant consequences. In short, be careful if you want to be good specialists.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/201806/
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