Test your webpage folks!!

My first blog entry is about simple tests that can save time. Kinda like Karl in the movie "Slingblade" says, "It ain't got no gas in it, hmmmm". Always think of the simple things first....

I was looking at a restaurant's website today and noticed that one can make online reservations. How convenient. You don't have to call them, just go online and make a reservation for your upcoming dinner.

• The first field I arrived at is the reservation date.

• Well, today's date is 03/17/2014 but I entered 03/01/2014, a date that is two weeks in the past. I filled out the rest of the required info and selected the Make a Reservation button.

• Hey whadda you know? No error messages telling me to enter a valid date. Just a friendly message about how I will be contacted about my future....errr past reservation. Hopping in my Delorean tonight so I can go to dinner with my wife on 03/01/2014.

• Result? Well, they never emailed me. I hope I didn't break their entire system due to poor programming.

Sometimes the most simple of tests can tell you a lot about the system you are using. Here is an example of another restaurant's online reservations that will not allow the user to enter invalid data.

 

• Past dates are dithered out to avoid such a calamity as the previous example. And this is also a handy way to kill two birds with one stone. Since the user cannot enter/select an invalid date there is no need to program in an error message to notify the user that they selected an invalid date. Pretty simple. Keep testing! The fun never stops! :)