Empathetic testing: Developing with compassion and humility.

Testing

Learn how to develop with empathy and humility, understanding the user's perspective and writing tests that are easy to maintain.

Key takeaways

Empathetic testing is about putting yourself in the shoes of the user and testing with compassion and humility.
The implementation bias is a common problem in testing, where we focus on defending our implementation choices rather than testing the actual functionality.
Writing tests that are easy to understand and maintain is important, as it allows others to contribute to the codebase.
Mocking can be useful, but it’s not always necessary. Sometimes, using a real client or a context manager can be a better approach.
Testing should focus on the outcome, not the implementation. This means that we should test what the user sees, rather than how we implement it.
The concept of a “unit” is often misunderstood. A unit is not necessarily a physical piece of code, but rather a concept or idea of functionality.
Empathy is important in testing, as it allows us to understand the user’s perspective and write better tests.
Humility is also important, as it allows us to admit when we’re wrong and refactor our code.
Testing should be done with the user in mind, rather than just focusing on the technical implementation.
The author’s story about his experience with cancer and the importance of empathy and humility in testing is a powerful reminder of the importance of these values in our work.

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