Activities

What are activities?

Activities are tasks that direct testers to explore and engage with product features during a delta testing phase. These tasks are used to communicate to the testers what you're expecting them to do in order to fully test a given feature. As testers read and complete activities they are sometimes motivated to test in different ways which provides additional coverage on the feature.

How are activities used in delta testing?

Each feature has the option of associating an activity or text used to represent a task or scenario. If the feature with an activity is assigned to an active phase, testers will be directed to complete the activities and as an optional element of the feature they may be asked to rate their satisfaction with that feature.

Why use activities in delta testing?

Activities give testers direction and make it clear what kind of experiences you need their feedback on. They help you overcome one of the biggest barriers to high challenges of getting tester engagement simply because they make your expectations known. Testers are more prone to submitting inconsistent feedback (or worse, not submitting feedback at all) when they aren't sure what you want them to do. 

Types of activities

There are a few different ways you can write your activities; each one provides different information back to your stakeholders. Explorative tasks encourage testers to decide the best path for achieving a specific goal. They show how testers will interact with the product. Directive tasks, on the other hand, limit the paths used to test a specific aspect of a feature. These directive tasks typically validate functionality and are generally performed to ensure a feature works properly.

Additionally there are some other styles of tasks like simple and complex tasks. Simple tasks communicating very easily understood by the tester and Complex require some thought. Simple tasks tend to use brief text while complex tasks tend to be used as a scenario putting the tester into a position where they could understand the request.

Examples of activities

• Simple: Please unbox the product and set it up.
• Simple: Create an account.
• Simple: Enable bluetooth and connect the device to your phone.
• Simple: Using the product, listen to music while working out at the gym.
• Complex: Your house is being remodeled and you need to get away for some peace and quiet. Take the product to a local coffee shop and watch a movie.

‍