Not so Easy

Easy Bake Toy Ovens Recalled Again How much research and engineering was actually done? It appears that product testing was done mainly through use. There is nothing like a lot of people using something to find its flaws. I have yet to work on a software project where gathering or using this information is part of the project. I have seen it used indirectly. In the beginning of my career my software was not web based and could not be easily updated. Testing and debugging after finishing the coding added another one-third to the project time-line. With web projects that is down to less then a tenth. I have seen products go out with no testing. Users find and report bugs in what is called a beta release. Users are expected to take the effort to make sure the developers fix these bugs. The bugs get fixed, but little effort is made to collect and implement change based on the user’s experience. There are sometimes questionnaires that users are asked to fill out. But they all seem to ask “did we build what we told you we were going to build so we can tell our bosses we did?” If negatives like bugs come out during beta use then there must also be positives. So should we consider a web based software release only two thirds of the project?