Isabel Evans

Isabel Evans

United Kingdom
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About

In the age of technology transformation and the knowledge worker one of the key skills…

Articles by Isabel

Activity

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Experience

  • University of Malta Graphic

    University of Malta

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    International

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    UK

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    Galway and Prague

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    UK and Hungary

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    UK, USA, Canada

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    London, United Kingdom

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Education

  • University of Malta Graphic

    University of Malta

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    Isabel read for her degree and postgraduate qualification as a mature student.

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Licenses & Certifications

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Volunteer Experience

  • Programme Secretary

    BCS SIGiST

    - 2 years 4 months

    Science and Technology

    I was responsible for arranging the SIGiST programmes, based around themes suitable for a software testing audience. There were four London meetings a year. I selected speakers and topics based on the themes for the day, and coordinate getting the speakers' abstracts ready for publication. With the committee I started a New Speaker Mentoring Scheme, intended to develop up to 4 new speakers a year, by linking potential speakers with mentors and giving the new speakers a short speaking slot at a…

    I was responsible for arranging the SIGiST programmes, based around themes suitable for a software testing audience. There were four London meetings a year. I selected speakers and topics based on the themes for the day, and coordinate getting the speakers' abstracts ready for publication. With the committee I started a New Speaker Mentoring Scheme, intended to develop up to 4 new speakers a year, by linking potential speakers with mentors and giving the new speakers a short speaking slot at a SIGiST.

Publications

  • How can heuristics be communicated?

    In: Plácido da Silva, H., Cipresso, P. (eds) Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications. CHIRA 2024. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 2370. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-82633-7_26

    This position paper proposes a model for choosing how to communicate heuristics in a meaningful, usable and accessible manner. The model is a matrix of nine shapes, where we define ‘shape’ as a combination of the heuristic’s format and its directiveness. Examining heuristics used in UX and software testing practices, we found a variety of formats and levels of directiveness. We discuss these shapes with example heuristics from UX, software testing, and everyday life. We present the outcome from…

    This position paper proposes a model for choosing how to communicate heuristics in a meaningful, usable and accessible manner. The model is a matrix of nine shapes, where we define ‘shape’ as a combination of the heuristic’s format and its directiveness. Examining heuristics used in UX and software testing practices, we found a variety of formats and levels of directiveness. We discuss these shapes with example heuristics from UX, software testing, and everyday life. We present the outcome from a pilot of the model in one specific context. The shape of a heuristic may contribute to its understandability and usefulness in specific contexts, while different contexts may necessitate different ways of communicating heuristics. This includes considering the effect that the shape of a heuristic has on its accessibility and inclusion, suggesting that shape may be one important aspect of heuristics’ design and evaluation.

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  • Stuck in Limbo with Magical Solutions: The Testers’ Lived Experiences of Tools and Automation

    Proceedings of the 15th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2020), pages 195-202 ISBN: 978-989-758-402-2

    The automation of people’s roles at work brings changes to their lives and work, bringing advantages of increased effectiveness and efficiency, yet potentially life-changing effects, including redundancy. The software industry’s purpose is to automate people’s tasks and activities, and this applies also to jobs within the software industry, including teams who specialise in testing software. Test automation projects are not always successful, and our research initially set out to discover…

    The automation of people’s roles at work brings changes to their lives and work, bringing advantages of increased effectiveness and efficiency, yet potentially life-changing effects, including redundancy. The software industry’s purpose is to automate people’s tasks and activities, and this applies also to jobs within the software industry, including teams who specialise in testing software. Test automation projects are not always successful, and our research initially set out to discover whether the challenges were usability-related, and whether HCI methods could help improve tools. We discovered a much richer story, which told of emotional stresses and life experiences within the software testing community. We discuss how automation, with all its benefits, affects motivation, causing disassociation of testers from their roles, and affecting their job-task mix. We show reasons why software test automation affects testers. Finally, we set out our position for our research
    about the lived experience of software testers using automation, which we are calling TX: The Testers’ Lived Experiences of Tools and Automation, and argue that the effect of automation and tooling on testers’ lived experience and its effect on their motivation is an area of study worthy of research.

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  • Breaking Tester Stereotypes: who is testing and why it matters

    37th International BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference (BCS HCI 24)

    Testing is essential for successful delivery of software solutions and is not always performed by specialist testers. In earlier studies, we noted a wide diversity in the backgrounds of the testers participating in these studies, prompting our research question: Who is Testing? We conducted a qualitative study of over 70 industry testers, covering testers from multiple countries and domains, with information about their backgrounds, hobbies, roles and characteristics. We show testers are from a…

    Testing is essential for successful delivery of software solutions and is not always performed by specialist testers. In earlier studies, we noted a wide diversity in the backgrounds of the testers participating in these studies, prompting our research question: Who is Testing? We conducted a qualitative study of over 70 industry testers, covering testers from multiple countries and domains, with information about their backgrounds, hobbies, roles and characteristics. We show testers are from a wide range of backgrounds, with differing needs, characteristics, and problem-solving preferences. Their roles in software projects are multi-faceted, requiring a high cognitive skill level. We discuss how to break stereotyping and best support diversity in testers’ backgrounds and characteristics.We consider whether software testers are different from other software practitioners, and how understanding tester personas helps support of testers and testing.

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  • Scared, frustrated and quietly proud : testers’ lived experience of tools and automation

    European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics 2021 (pp. 1-7)

    Software testing is vital, expensive, time-consuming yet a necessary part of software development. Testers perform repeated actions during testing, where automation and tools could reduce costs, timescale and human error. However, challenges to tools adoption have been identified in academic research and industry, which are blockers to success with automation. In attempting to find whether testers were experiencing tool usability shortcomings, we followed an exploratory research path…

    Software testing is vital, expensive, time-consuming yet a necessary part of software development. Testers perform repeated actions during testing, where automation and tools could reduce costs, timescale and human error. However, challenges to tools adoption have been identified in academic research and industry, which are blockers to success with automation. In attempting to find whether testers were experiencing tool usability shortcomings, we followed an exploratory research path, collecting stories from over 100 test practitioners. We discovered a richer, more complex story than we expected. We realised that usability – while necessary – is not sufficient to enable success, and that other human factors challenge successful automation projects. In answering privately to questions about their experiences of tools and automation, testers expressed themselves in language that was more emotional and linked to their lived experience (LX) than we expected. We uncovered frustrations and fear, as well as pride. In this paper we present our findings so far about TX: The testers’ lived experience of tools and automation, and we suggest steps for future research.

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  • Test tools : an illusion of usability?

    2020 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW) (pp. 392-397). IEEE.

    Software testing is vital, yet expensive and time- consuming. This essential part of the software development process includes testers performing many repeated actions in test execution and management. Use of automation and tools could reduce costs and timescale, while providing consistency by removing human error during repetitive activities. Challenges for successful tools and automation adoption have been identified both in academic research and in industry practice, including technical…

    Software testing is vital, yet expensive and time- consuming. This essential part of the software development process includes testers performing many repeated actions in test execution and management. Use of automation and tools could reduce costs and timescale, while providing consistency by removing human error during repetitive activities. Challenges for successful tools and automation adoption have been identified both in academic research and in industry practice, including technical, managerial, skills-related and usability issues. We set out to investigate what usability improvements would aid successful tool adoption, and discovered that usability, while a necessary attribute, is not sufficient to ensure success, and the belief in usability as a sufficient cure for automation shelfware might be an illusory phenomenon which disguises potential difficulties when using tools longer term. This illusion of usability includes a belief that UI attractiveness is sufficient for tool usability, a belief that testers come from a narrow group of personas, and a belief that skill levels and requirements for tools are static. This may lead to frustration for testers, and therefore reluctance to use tools and automation. We summarise our findings and outline our proposed next research steps.

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  • Achieving Software Quality Through Teamwork

    Artech

Honors & Awards

  • Testing Excellence Award 2017

    EuroSTAR Conference

    EuroSTAR’s European Testing Excellence Award is presented annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the field of software testing within Europe. The award seeks to promote leadership, contribution and effectiveness in testing process and implementation.

    Special recognition is given to those who serve the testing community and inspire other test professionals to take a collaborative approach to advancing the craft of software testing.

    See:…

    EuroSTAR’s European Testing Excellence Award is presented annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the field of software testing within Europe. The award seeks to promote leadership, contribution and effectiveness in testing process and implementation.

    Special recognition is given to those who serve the testing community and inspire other test professionals to take a collaborative approach to advancing the craft of software testing.

    See: https://conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/about/awards/testing-excellence-award

  • Speaking, Teaching: keynotes, tutorials and workshops

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    Isabel has spoken on software quality, testing and test management at conferences in the UK, Europe and the USA. She was voted best speaker at EuroSTAR 2002 and at BCS SIGiST in 2003. She received best paper awards at ExpoQA 2010 and at EuroSTAR 2010. She has provided keynotes at the EuroSTAR, STARWest, STAREast, STARCanada, BCS SIGiST, Agile Testing Days, NOKIA Test Dive and ANZTB conferences.

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