And then I get to this particular bit of logical Möbius strip:

To clarify: The control is labeled What did you accomplish on Dice.com today? (Select all that apply)

However, not one of the checkboxes is labeled None of these.

So to continue to the next step, if you want to continue, you must lie. And remember, the entrance to this quiz is on page load of Dice.com. That is, before you have accomplished anything at all.

Me, I didn’t lie: I eventually checked Other and Specified I got a blog post out of it.

What’s the lesson here, lads and lasses? Read the labels of the controls you’re checking, and make sure they make sense and make sure any enforcement rules upon them make sense vis-à-vis that label text.

Where was I? Oh, yes. I was talking about trusting your application, particularly one with complicated rules whose violation might result in a prison sentence. You want to trust that application, don’t you? So do I.

But I get the software installed and get into the mandatory registration (that is, give us personal information so we can target more in-application advertising pop-ups to you), and I get confronted with obvious slops on the design.

To whit:

A couple missing lines and slurred text, probably caused by poor compression or sizing.

Next up:

A stray bracket in the corner.

Man, oh man, I can’t wait to find out what strange punctuation marks it leaves in my figures.

Do I trust the application? Not so much. Which is why I don’t use it for much more than a glorified check register. And if it continues with its unrepentant, unrelenting barrage of “Collect credit cards with Intuit!”, “Print checks with Intuit!”, “Let Intuit have access to all your financial accounts!” banners popping up before I can pay my bills, I won’t have to trust it in the future, as I move to Microsoft Excel where it’s nice and quiet.

Basically, here three order list points boil down to 1)You’re hired into a new company and don’t get the lay of the land before you start making a mess, 2) You’re unlikeable, and 3) You are not a leader.

As you might know, I think #1 is very important, and I’ve harped on it on occasion here. When you’re hired in as a manager, you have (or have convinced someone that you have) skill and ideas applicable to leading people in doing whatever you’re managing. You might have led a team in some other industry doing something similar, or you might even have been working within the same industry for a competitor or some related organization. Be that as it may, you don’t know how things are done in your new organization, and until you do, you should probably avoid upsetting the apple cart with your new ideas and processes which are really only old ideas and processes that might have worked at your last employer. At your new posting, some things are done that way because they’ve always been done that way, but some things are done that way because they work for your new employer and new employees. Until you can tell them apart, you don’t know where your new ideas are improvements or impediments.

As to number 2, remember, lads and lasses, there’s a fine line between being a jerk and being confident and right. Regardless of which side of that line you’re on, people who don’t like you or what you’re saying will think and say you’re a jerk. So be professional, but be confident and tell people the hard truths. Clearly. Dare I say, bluntly? I DARE.

And for number 3, we’ve seen QA managers like this, haven’t we? Just glad to be sitting at the big table and unafraid to rock the boat. You’re not going to add anything dodging that responsibility, and when it comes time to trim budget, if nobody remembers you saying anything about anything, especially not saying anything that stuck up for anything, they’re going to wonder why you’re on the payroll in the first place.

So do what Ms. Breslin says. Or the opposite of what she says. You’ll be a better manager for it.

But know these are not the reasons QA hates you. QA hates you because QA hates everybody.

Take the Progressive Insurance contact us form:

Now, if you don’t select a topic before you click Submit, it asks for a topic. But only a topic

When you select a topic, it changes the fields on the form to reflect what they want for that kind of inquiry (enquiry for our R.P. friends). If you click Submit then, it shows you a list of the fields you need to fill out:

But if you click the Reset button to reset the form, well, that’s not cricket (cricket for our R.P. friends):

You know, any time your form changes the controls on the screen due to AJAX or other techniques, it’s a different form. And it never hurts to check your reset button in various forms of filling out the form, especially if there are look-ups or state changes as you fill out the form.

UPDATE: Welcome, Progressive Insurance readers!

Key paragraph:

“They’re much more important than the client, in their minds,” says Peter De Lorenzo, editor in chief of the car commentary site AutoExtremist.com. “They make ads to amuse themselves.”

Holy cats, that’s a bunch of people in software development, too, ainna?

“Wars” by Hurt.

I don’t normally work in the UX/UI design world, but I know enough from constantly filling out web forms that too many designs out there are destined for a special ring of data Hell. If you’ve followed any of my web form rants on Twitter, you may have heard this before…but it should be repeated.

Go learn his list of peccadilloes and think about your own. Then, bother your designers and developers when they do something convenient for themselves once, but annoying to users thousands of times.

(Thanks to gimlet for the link.)

You need to be careful about what you promise—especially when you make a promise on social media.

This adage is ringing loud and clear for Toronto-based Timothy’s Coffee. In an effort last month to grow its Facebook fan base, the company ran a promotion saying that anyone who “liked” its page would receive four free 24-pack boxes of single-serve coffee. As the Toronto Star reports, this was rather generous, as these boxes retail for over $17 CAD each.

A contest aggregating site picked up the promotion and, as you can imagine, responses poured in, reports the Star. Problem is, the stock of product was depleted within three days of the launch, yet Timothy’s still sent emails telling people their coffee was on the way.

The best part? This is an EPIC WIN! for Timothy’s Coffee’s interactive agency, since a promotion so successful that it makes headlines is AWESOME! It’ll be in all the presentations from here on out.

As always, you have to remember that the little numbers on the screen match up with numbers somewhere else in real life. And your application can be one hundred percent consistent with itself, but if its business rules and limits do not align with the real life it represents, it’s a worthless application.

(Link seen via tweet, but I forget whose. Sorry.)

“Trouble Tickets Are Your Business” in ST & QA Magazine.

Book recommendations in The Testing Circus.