Pen Game: A Mean to Fathom Software Testing

Bangalore: A handful of testers find the Pen Test an easier way to explain software testing. In a Pen Test, the presenter will hold up a pen in his hand and repeat some questions. With only two possible answers, he would like to know what makes the answer Yes and what makes the answer No.

Michael Larsen, in his blog brought out the relationship between the Pen Game and Software Testing. While testing, the testers are being presented with the program (the pen). The behavior of the testing is displayed (words and actions to display the pen) and based on the behavior, the testers can determine the state of the program.

The next step for a tester is to create a hypothesis and test it. If the result accepts the hypothesis, then we can still continue testing, however, if the results disregard the hypothesis, then we have to abandon the model or the assumptions.

The answer can be determined based on the behavior of the application. We can bring out different clues for the answer. The clues are being tried and if it doesn’t work we can replace it with another clue. Thus, coming closer to the answer.

Sometimes when we have no valid answers at our disposal, we tend to make guesses. However, if we make too many right guesses, there can be a possibility that we might create an inaccurate mental model. For example, if we are able to make four correct answers, we might think that the next answer is a yes because we have created a mental model that all answers are Yes.

However, if a game becomes too popular, it loses its potency as we tend to focus more on the answer. Therefore, a tester would need to look out for other games that can be applied for software testing.