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EuroSTAR Conference

Europe's Largest Quality Engineering Conference

Keynote 1

Breaking Test Stereotypes: Who Is Testing and Why It Matters

Isabel Evans

9.00 - 10.00 BST Wednesday 4th June

Who is testing? What are their backgrounds, experiences, training, and readiness for this role? I made a qualitative study of testers from multiple countries, working in many domains, with information about their backgrounds, hobbies, roles and characteristics. People who test come from many backgrounds and sometimes have surprising earlier careers and interests. Their roles in software projects are multi-faceted, requiring a high cognitive skill level, yet the activity of software testing is sometimes stereotyped as boring and easy; potentially replaceable by tools or AI. Breaking stereotyping, better supporting diversity in testers’ backgrounds and characteristics, might encourage changes in recruitment, on-boarding, approaches, tool support and attitudes to the testing activity.

What you will learn

  1. Arguments and evidence against stereotyping testers and testing.
  2. Suggestions for improving recruitment, onboarding and development of testers.
  3. Suggestions for helping testing activities to use appropriate tools and approaches.

Session Details

  • Introductory
  • 45 minutes
  • Includes 15 mins Q&A
  • Discovering and addressing biases
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Check out this video from Isabel Evans to hear more about his talk, ‘Breaking Test Stereotypes: Who Is Testing and Why It Matters’.

We look forward to welcoming you to EuroSTAR 2025.

Session Speaker

Isabel Evans

Independent, UK

After more than 30 years in IT, as a quality and testing practitioner Isabel is now a part-time post-graduate student at the University of Malta. Her research focuses on human factors in testing and test tools, and arises from real-life experiences as a test manager, quality manager, and test consultant. Isabel is an author and speaker and has spoken at many software conferences, Isabel chaired EuroSTAR (2019) and HUSTEF (2018), she is a Fellow of the BCS, and received the 2017 EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award.

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