Are Women Better Testers than Men?
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After reading Tobias Mayer’s Test(osterone)-infected Developers, I noticed my test team has 3 men and 8 women, while my dev team has 30 men and 2 women. This is a small sample but I agree with Tobias that it is the norm.
Are she-testers better testers or just more interested in testing? This is a tired blogosphere discussion but a more interesting question is:
Do she-testers have unique skills worth harnessing?
My answer is, yes. I think women have at least one powerful advantage over men when it comes to testing. They are arguably better at observing subtle clues.
Most differences between men and women can be understood by noting their strongest biological roles. Women have babies! Thus, women are wired to pay attention to their babies and identify problems based on subtle expressions or behavior changes (e.g., baby is sick). I’ve heard women are better than men at determining if someone is lying, based on the same biological reasons.
Yesterday, while observing a premature field population UI bug, a she-tester on my team noticed the larger problem (that I missed). Previously populated data was getting erased. Of course, this may have just been a case of “two heads are better than one”, but my she-testers always impress with their subtle observations.
What differences have you observed between men and women testers? Can we use these differences to build a better test team?
February 14th, 2010 at 11:57 am
I disagree, because the skillset is similar in understanding systems structure in both building a program and taking it apart. Most likely your tester is more gifted in understanding systems than you expect her to be and this leads you to look for some other answer.
Did you consider that being able to notice subtle differences is also what keeps you alive in a forest full of all kinds of dangers?
It also probably helps your testers to think OOTB because they don’t know in detail how you’ve built the program. You do, and you cannot help but expect it to work the way you intended it to work.
February 14th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I think you see what I think is wrong with this question when I change it a little bit: Are black people better testers than white people?