Recommended for: Junior testers, Mid testers, Senior testers & leads, managers.

Biases have been the subject of quite some talks on stage nowadays. Biases that are a threat to delivering high-quality software. And for sure there is a lot to worry about, we all know for example that we assume that we know exactly what our stakeholders wants, and we still produce not working software.

But is it also possible to use those biases in the favor of quality and testing? In fact, there is a way that biases are used in a positive way, and it has a name: nudging. Nudging uses ‘choice architecture’, which means creating a situation where you can make unconscious choice for a good purpose. It is used a lot in marketing and politics, for example how a grocery store, using green arrows to the fruit and veggie aisles, increase the sale of healthy food.

I looked at different opportunities that nudging gives us for the sake of better agile testing. For example, in a refinement or in a discussion about bugs or when we are delivering our results to our team or our stakeholders. In my talk, I will elaborate more on what nudging exactly is, the ethical questions around nudging, and how we can apply nudging while testing. It will be an exploration so bear with me.

Key takeaways

• What is nudging and what are the principles behind nudging 
• Examples of how can you apply nudging as a tester 
• New ideas on how to apply nudging in testing 

Prerequisites: none