I was talking with my senior tester and he asked me a question I couldn't answer to his satisfaction
When I am testing, how do I recognize a problem?
I answered that when I am testing a product, I am testing all relevant factors. I check for console errors, I check the error log, pagination, breadcrumbs, any php errors, database errors, whether I can cause a sql injection attack. If anything seems bad then I report a bug.
My senior tester asked:
How do you know when something "seems bad"? How do you tell the difference between good and bad?
I answered that when I am testing a product like customer experience, with a registration page, if I entered the details and click on submit button and I see that the name couldn't register yet, this is a bug and seems bad.
My senior tester asked:
What makes that bad, though? Why is that not OK?(Those probably sound like odd questions; that the answer is obvious. What's obvious, though?)
I said that the name is not registered and I got a php error so this is a bug.
He said:
You know it's a bug only because an error message appeared? What if an error message didn't appear? Would it still be a bug? How would you know?
I said that if an error message didn't appear, then I would check the users list, and if the username doesn't appear it should be a bug and then also I check to login with the particular user. If it couldn't get to login, then it should also a bug I also check the console error too.
What makes it a bug? How do you notice other bugs?
Incorrect results happens, some mistakes in design and coding.
How do you know they're mistakes? How do you know they're incorrect?
Because its a functionality error
The programmer tells you how he believes it should work, and it doesn't work that way. So the product is inconsistent with a claim the programmer made. Problem?
I don't understand what my senior tester is looking for. He is asking me how I know something is a problem, but none of my answers are good enough.
What are the standard ways of deciding if something is a problem?