Because of the definition of software testing being the testing of software, and âtestingâ being in the context of software or other items under test, and within the context of a tester role.
We perform activities related to testing every second of every day. Your brain is a set of tacit heuristics and hidden processes constantly working, even while you sleep. Driving a car is an exploratory performance, where feedback from sight and sound are fed into our mental models that affect our choices and behaviours based on the immediate context and that of our environments and social contracts. We use focus/defocus to find solutions to problems and identify things that matter. We change our attention to where itâs required at the expense of something else.
For the question âhow do I know X is good?â - Iâm entirely with Kate on that one. Skillful skepticism comes with limits to our time and energy. From Kahnemanâs now-classic âThinking Fast And Slowâ we simply cannot maintain a consistent stream of System 2 thinking (slow, tiring, requires attention). Thatâs not to say that we donât perform System 2 thinking at all - we just have to âdecideâ when it matters.
Specifically in the realm of business Iâd say that testers are best deployed when testing design and ideas. A good tester, if well armed, in my opinion (who elseâs would I be using?) can test a discussion, a document, a business proposal, pretty much anything. âShift-leftâ, or whatever weâre calling that now, was a well-meaning attempt to push testing towards the start of the process. Slowly we move towards the idea that testing is a platform on which we rest the entire lifecycle, one that pervades and supports all elements of it.
Another interesting take is what our skills and tools are capable of doing. Can we âtestâ HR? What would that look like? Who would have the skills to do it? What would we examine? What tools might we use? What does a bug look like? Software exists to solve a problem. We can think of ways in which it might not solve that problem, or solve it in a poor way. Iâm sure itâs someoneâs job to gain insight that support are supporting, ops are opsing, HR are hrrring, and ways in which they might not be - or ways they could be doing it better or cheaper. We just donât call those people testers, I guess.
Iâd say dedicated testers exist for software because itâs closest to the money. Itâs used to test what a customer will most associate with the money theyâve handed over. That quality translates to a bunch of stuff (positive brand association, uptake, low turnover, word-of-mouth advertising, portfolio, etc) that translates to cash. Itâs the answer to the question âis the thing weâre selling any good?â.