CompuServe Messages

[ continuation ] have all the answers. You suggest that a beta tester shouldn't be looking for bugs, but ensuring the consistency of the user interface. In a perfect world of software development, potential users should be involved during the design and not after the coding! Significant elements should be sketched out on paper or prototyped. At the least, good software should be designed so that changes to the interface don't require a major rewrite of the program! Testers who excel at testing may not be familiar with the particular application, and users who are very familiar with the application may not be particularly good at testing. A single developer or two, what I imagine is a common arrangement for the Amiga, probably gets pulled into many different directions when they *ARE* able to get comments from beta testers. Maybe they are committed to the success of the project, or maybe their interest has faded and they are ready to move on to another project. Maybe their focus was never on satisfying a computer user's needs, but only in solving a challenging technical problem. Developing quality software is rewarding, but different people unfortunately approach the topic with different definitions of what "quality" is and how to get there. *** jd