Exploring Play Styles
The ways we play influence the ways we test. In this exercise, we explore what that might mean.
Axioms for here and now...
- Exploration is playing with intent (see What is Exploratory Testing? in Alan Richardson's Dear Evil Tester).
- Exploratory testing is exploration with judgement.
Exercise
10 mins, solo or together
How do you like to play? If you need a framework, have a look at one of the sources below.
How has that tendency influenced your exploration, and by extension your exploratory testing?
Debrief
10 minutes
Share, consider differences, identify things you want to take away.
Sources
Sutton-Smith, Seven Rhetorics of Play
- Progress – growth is fun. Numbers going up.
- Fate – unpredictability (and one's reaction to it) is fun. Chance.
- Power – being better is fun. Winning.
- Community identity – feeling closer to others is fun. Group-making.
- Imaginary – experiments are fun. Safe learning.
- Self – discovering oneself is fun. Self knowledge.
- Frivolity – silliness is fun. Absurdism.
More from House of Nerdery, summary from Encyclopaedia of Play in Today's Society, bio in Wikipedia.
Stuart Brown's Eight Personalities of Play
- The Explorer – novelty and learning is fun.
- The Collector – similarity, completeness and rarity is fun.
- The Competitor – winning, and being the winner, is fun.
- The Creator – making and mending is fun
- The Director – planning, thinking ahead, manipulating is fun
- The Joker – subversion is fun.
- The Storyteller – narrative is fun.
- The Kinesthete – moving is fun.
Mildred Parton's stages of childhood play
- Unoccupied – seems scattered and aimless
- Solitary – directed, no interaction with others
- Onlooker – active watching, not joining in
- Parallel – same game, same place, not interacting
- Associative – more about the other players than the toys or activity
- Cooperative – sharing goals, assigning roles, negotiating rules
See wikipedia
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