Agile Testing Days take-aways #1 - Visualising Quality

Last week I had the privilege of attending Agile Testing Days 2013, where I was a consensus speaker. This post starts a series summarising the main learning points I took away from the awesome conference.

First up is David Evans on Visualising Quality. David provided a very moving key-note that ranged from the Challenger disaster and Napolean's retreat to Lady Gaga and the McGurk effect. He very effectively communicated the care and thought needed when we construct visualisations. Some things I felt helpful to consider or try out were:

1. wordle.net - Pour in all of our test case names and see what it looks like.
2. The value of the information we provide is equal to the value of the decision it informs - provides a good rule for deciding how much effort to put into creating a visualisation.
3. We're not pilots, so don't build a dashboard that makes it looks like we are - good advice against going overboard with awesome dashboards.
4. Consider carefully how your information is presented: use a representation appropriate to the decision its informing and ensure that those making the decision understand what the data is saying. David gave many good examples (such as how the US voted during the 2012 elections) of how the choice of axis can distort or enhance the true picture. Each time we create a visualisation of something, we should carefully consider how appropriate the axis are (e.g. what's the best code-metric: LOC, files, test coverage, live usage?).