Here are 10 reasons why I find useful to write down what you test while you test. This doesn´t mean to write every detail but the main parts and the important parts need to be specified.

1) It keeps track of what you have been doing. You can find easily some details in your test. For example the path of some script, some database table etc.

2)You can use the text/ log of what you wrote as as report for testing. To give to your client for example.

3)You can better present your approach used by presenting the details of what you wrote.

4)You can improve your writing skills. Also you can improve the way you describe your actions, test etc

5)You can be more organised.

6)You can learn better the application to test, the details involving working with the application. When you write down something is easier to learn.

7)You have the sensation of continuity which can contribute a lot to your motivation.

8)It reduces a disadvantage compared to development, where written part (code) is ¨proof¨ of the work, for most part.

9) You can put more details to a bug report using what you already described.

10)The writing activity can be used as a paralel activity to the usual actions, like  de-focusing -very important for efficiency, but still useful as a whole (compared to browsing meaningful websites)

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1. Tim Western says:

   October 19, 2010 at 8:44 pm

   #11 Reduces time spent on creating/writing test script logs before they’ve been run. (Seriously, how much time is wasted preparing an Excel or Word Doc for a spreadsheet with such insane detail, when just going through and noting what we tested, what we observed, what faults we found etc?)

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