It All Starts With You

If you are interested in being part of our alpha test, or better yet, you have an occasion coming up in the life of someone you love that is worthy of celebrating, please let me know.   Unlike our upcoming beta test (sign up here), we are not releasing code access or allowing people outside our team to use these early versions, but parallel to that we are working on mastering the work flow and human processes that will be streamlined and automated with the new Remarkable by Creative Outlet Labs.

So, here is where I can use your help (and in plain English): if you are looking to celebrate a milestone birthday, graduation, retirement, or some other notable occasion with someone you love in the coming months and want to do something incredible for them (and you are willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement that you won’t tell all of our secrets before its time), I’d love to hear from you.  Email AlphaMe@CreativeOutletLabs.com with the details and hopefully we can work together on something remarkable for the someone in your life that is remarkable!

Test Patterns

This weekend, we started testing the Alpha version of Remarkable by Creative Outlet Labs.  After some initial browser compatibility issues that were resolved by weekend’s end, we were off.   Now, I can test my testing skills in a variety of methods.  Professional testers run scripts, do end-to-end and functional tests, and have statistical theory behind them.  Me, I take a more organic approach.

Here are my test patterns.  First, I check to make sure the features all work.  Like end-to-end testing, I try to walk through the application the way a real user would.  The test cases for this first release are pretty simple (after all we are starting in the epicenter and working outwards).  I capture bugs and enhancement ideas along the way in our handy-dandy tracking tool. 

I then start experimenting with the edges of the application.  How much text can I cram into a text field?  How big a file can be uploaded?  How complex can I make something before I can see the seams start to break?  This not only stresses the functionality to ensure that it will be able to survive in the wild, but it also allows us to test error handling.  How do we communicate to users of the software when things don’t go right?  Sometimes that is just as important as encouraging them when things are going well and they are using the application precisely how it was designed to be utilized.

As I go through, I am thinking of ways to make it easier, better, or faster for our eventual customers (you!).  This leads to some good ideas and some crazy, off-the-wall, and downright bad ideas as well.  No matter, I capture them all in our tracking tool so that we can rule them out (or refine them) later.  More ideas lead to better ideas, I think.

I am very excited about the early results of this testing.  Not only is it meeting the functional requirements we outlined, but I think we are on to some VERY innovative and insanely simple features that will make your life easier.  After all, I can see how they’d make my life easier.

While testing continues, we are heads down fixing issues that arise and working on the second Alpha release.  I can’t wait to see how the next phase goes. Stay tuned for more updates.

Nothing Happens Automagically

After a brief hiatus (due, if you must know, to a relocation, several family emergencies, and general life upheaval), I am back in the blogging business.  I do wish that WordPress (or someone) would write an application that would “automagically” post whenever I thought of things that might be of interest.  While mind reading is still sci-fi fiction, I have enjoyed Twittering away and encourage you to follow me there (Twitter, as a micro-blog, probably being the closest thing to automagic, which ironically is a term I read for the first time in a Twitter post earlier this week).  I really do hope you missed the blog posts and the updates on the development of Remarkable.

So, on that topic, we have been working diligently on building out the application and are nearing a critical alpha milestone.  For those of you unfamiliar with software development methodologies, most have stages of development during which critical foundational code is written, but only used internally.  This stage is called alpha.  It is usually not in the final user interface (a $20 phrase that means things like how the software looks, how people would click around to do things, and the colors, font styles, and button treatments used).  It is usually pretty unreliable, but is a way to start testing and building out the core functionality. 

With the development of agile philosophies for programming and a “nothing beats real code” attitude, the alpha phases of development are getting shorter.   Even the alpha phase can have several sub-phases as you anticipate changes and iterations throughout the project.  Ours will be several months in total (hate to publicly commit at this point) before we turn our attention to the beta phase which comes next.

Beta is a word that has gotten a little skewed (or expanded, rather) lately as many companies have public, “all comer” beta periods that last a year or more.  In most companies, beta is reserved for either a select group of testers or product champions who can use the real application (usually still with some final tweaks and adjustments to be made) and provide feedback.  Usually beta releases are feature complete and try to represent, as best as possible, the real user experience.  Beta phases also allow a forum for testing pricing, promotions, and for getting the word out about the coming application.  If you haven’t yet registered to receive an invitation to participate in our beta , click here and sign up.

Eventually, you call the application “production” and the beta is complete (you never call it “done,” of course, as you always have ideas and things you can do to improve).  In my days of working in packaged software, we’d do the final release sign-offs and exclaim “ship it!”  With this web application, it is just a matter of pushing the code live.  Now that I think about it, I will probably still yell “ship it” when we get to that point, as “push it” doesn’t really have the same ring to it.

Yes, development is going well even though we are in the early stages.  Thanks for asking!  I am sure we all wish that the process of developing software, just like blog posts, could happen automagically, but alas…our hard work will be your gain when Remarkable is ready for you to use.