This post is a continuation of the series examining the lenses of game design described by Jesse Schell in his book The Art of Game Design. Previous posts in this series can be found here. [pullquote] Fun is desirable in nearly every game, though sometimes fun defies analysis. To maximize your game’s fun, ask yourself […]
I believe…
We’ll resume the Art of Game Design series shortly (with a far smaller gap than between lenses #1 & 2), but first an interlude. I mentioned in the last post that I had recently done some training for a client. Part of that training sprung from a conversation I had with the client’s QA Director […]
TAOGD Lenses: Lens #2 “The Lens of Surprise”
This post is a continuation of the series examining the lenses of game design described by Jesse Schell in his book The Art of Game Design. Previous posts in this series can be found here. [pullquote] Surprise is so basic that we can easily forget about it. Use this lens to remind yourself to fill […]
TAOGD Lenses: Lens #1 “The Lens of Essential Experience”
In the my earlier post, I talked about Jesse Schell‘s book, “The Art of Game Design”, promising to go lens by lens through the book. This is the first post looking at a lens. More to come! Jesse Schell’s Lens #1 in The Art of Game Design is “The Lens of Essential Experience”. This lens […]
Jesse Schell’s Lenses of Game Design and Testers
When I’m not doing my professional tasks, one of the things I like to do is to play board games- things like Puerto Rico and The Castles of Burgundy. From time to time, I’ve dabbled with the idea of designing my own board game and it may one day happen, but so far, I’ve not […]
Getting out of our own way as Testers, part 1: changing the metaphor for bugs
In my presentation at CAST 2013, I will be talking about some non-traditional things that the best testers I know do, using material from TED talks, biographies, and various fields of research. Because I have been spending a lot of time looking at these talks as I rehearse my talk, I have a lot of […]
Feast or Famine: why the posts are flowing now….
I’m pondering why it seems so easy to pump out blog posts today, the day after TestRetreat and the day before CAST 2013. Here are my first impressions: It’s easy to forget that people are interested in what we have to say when we are mired in the everyday routine of our lives. It’s easy […]
TestRetreat 2013 – The Rest of my Mindmaps
The last 3 sessions I was in resulted in smaller mindmaps. I was mentally processing more information and thus didn’t capture everything. I’m going to combine all three mindmaps into a single post. First up was a discussion that Matt Heusser facilitated around the Cynefin sense-making framework. Matt sees value here for testers and was […]
New Testers and Awe of “Experts”
I have been doing a lot of interviews in the last year for permanent and consultant testers and one question I always ask is who they follow in blogs or who they have read to learn about and improve their skills as testers. On the rare occasion that the interviewee actually gives me a name […]
Why I practice testing
Practice makes perfect is the old saw that we have all heard before, but we know there is no such thing as perfect testing. So what do I practice related to testing and why do I think it is important? One of my main goals in life as well as my career is to keep […]