I read the quotes or thoughts often about the code being written. Like, write the code for other programmer and not just for you; so that, the other programmer can pick it in ease and work from there. You should have come across similar thoughts on code.
Have you ever come across thought[s] that speak about the bug report being written?
The bug report you write, is it for you alone? Or, is it for the audience to whom you wrote? Or, is it for someone who picks it up and work upon later?
How good are the audience of your bug report on reading it? How did other fellow testers feel reading your bug report? How easy it was for you to read your own bug report and work on it later? How smooth it was for other tester to understand your bug report and test the fix?
I experience this:
- A bug report with a precise and helpful technical details did not serve the audience and fellow testers
- A bug report with no precise and helpful technical details did not serve the audience and fellow testers
- A bug report with plain English and attachments did not serve
While I say, that, I see this helped most audience sometime:
- A bug report in plain English giving the context, little or no technical information and associated details
It has happened, that I have rewritten my bug reports on reading it after an hour. And, I have rewritten the bug report of others as well after testing the fix. In both cases, I "prevent" the pain which I and others go through to some extent. At least, I hope so!
To end, I recall this quote of Martin Fowler
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good Programmers write code that humans can understand.
I see, this holds good for a bug report as well. All and any of us can write a bug report. A skilled engineer [and test engineer] can write a bug report which does not bring unwanted pain to her or his audience.
Anytime, did you read your own bug report after 3 months of writing it? How deep was the pain and annoyance to know what it was all about? Give the same bug report to your fellow tester or programmer or product owner; ask, what did they know from it.
