Why Do Bug Reports Cause Negative Feelings?

April 02 10:00 2014 by Nataliia Vasylyna Print This Article

Errors, found during mobile testing, desktop testing, web site testing, and error reports always upset software engineers to some extent.

That makes sense, as bug reports always deliver bad news for programmers. They show the developers faults of their hard work. If a software engineer is upset or irritated because of something he or she may take a bug report personally and get angry with the tester who logged in the defect.

Bug Reports May Make Programmers or Other Project Parties Angry Because They Demonstrate:

deficiencies of the elaborated application;
imperfections of the utilized instruments and methods that are supposed to be and believed to be perfect;
necessity of spending time and costs on fixing errors.

No one likes when his or her convictions and views are criticized. It often seems to programmers that that is what testers do executing mobile application testing, desktop testing or web site testing.

A software testing company advises testers to be patient and tolerant, and try to reduce negative impact of their error reports. Testers must indicate and describe defects of the application under test in their reports, but never criticize the programmers.

Programmers and other stakeholders must understand that at present it is impossible to create ideal software. Testers search for errors in order to improve the product, not to criticize somebody or increase expenditures.