Why, when and how to return Stream from your Java API instead of a collection

Hi uTesters! I decided to write this blog because even though there are plenty of blogs that give tips to be a good and successful tester I wanted to document in short what I've learned in my first 4 months here in Software Testing Course In Thane, as many people have asked me how to achieve that, hopefully my experience will be useful for others.

So here is my list of Tips, Tricks and Advices to be a successful uTester:

1. 👍 BE RESPONSIBLE AND HONEST:

This is my first and most important advice of all, if you are not responsible, professional, honest and serious about your work it will be impossible to be successful. This means:

a) ⌚ Only accept paid cycles invites and/or claim Test Cases if you are able to start ASAP, even if the cycle will last many days you never know if it can be locked before the time limit to submit your Test Case. If you accept a cycle and don't contribute to it you're taking the spot of another tester that could have the time and dedication to test. Our job is to follow instructions and think as a team reuniting proofs to help fix the product and we represent uTest as a whole so we have to try to give the best results we can. If you join a cycle and can't find any new bugs try to reproduce others, you'll be learning and confirming +1 will help as evidence to prove the issue is also happening in your environment, that way you will boost your rating and help your fellow testers to document their reports.

b) 🦑 Never accept more cycles than what you can handle, if you are currently on a complicated cycle try focusing fully to it, to have active in your dashboard many cycles and participate just a little in each won't be good for your rating or history, if you only accept cycles to grab Test Cases because you think that in that way you will earn more money, maybe you will but if you only focus to submit Test Cases without raising bug reports or follow the instructions most likely you won't be invited to those cycles again. uTest and customers pay us to do the best we can, not only a part of the work.

c) 🤓 Read thoroughly the overview (twice if you can) before accepting, if you don't understand how to do something maybe the cycle requirements don't fit your skills, check that the devices in scope match with yours as well as the languages, etc. If the description of the product is vague, “Google” the name of the product so that you can understand what is it about. Never take for granted that the overview automatically will match with your testing profile, even uTest alogarithm to send invites makes mistakes every now and then.

d) 😬 If you have a personal issue or problem that prevents you on participating after accepting a cycle try to contact the TTL and explain your situation. This is a virtual/online job and we can't see face to face but that doesn't mean that we can be irresponsible or give excuses for not completing our work. If you release your Test Case slot at the last moment you're affecting the rest of the team and uTest in general, finally they are the ones who show their face to the customer for us.

e) ☝️NEVER submit a bug report as a placeholder without full attachments or information required for the cycle to later change it, that will make you look like a dishonest person that is copying information that doesn't belong to you and you are also affecting the other report as it could be rejected as duplicate if yours was raised first. This is against the CoC. If you find out another report that looks like a placeholder contact the TTL and let him/her know about it, the team leaders are usually very busy and sometimes they don't catch this kind of cheaters so you will be helping them to be fair with the rest.

2. 👌 RAISE QUALITY BUG REPORTS:

a) 📝 No matter the type of the report, even if it is something ordinary it’s important to fill the report template as clear, accurate and full as you can, providing full attachments required for that specific cycle. Watch for typos and check it again before clicking on “submit” and if you can prove the issue is happening in two different environments or browsers you can upload 2 videos to show reproducibility. Focus on the precision of the title description and template for the cycle, to write a good title will help others when filtering to see duplicates and also it would be easier for the customer to keep track of it.

b) 🤞 Before starting a new cycle prepare your devices for testing, turn off all notifications on your mobile, there's nothing more annoying than recording a video and get notifications or a call during it and have to start all over again. If you're recording on desktop have open only the most needed windows, be careful not to share private information of other products if your managing some cycles at a time.

c) 📷 If your issue is related to Graphics (Visual or GUI) remember to add in the Additional Environment Issue field your device screen size and attach a screenshot of your OS if you consider it necessary to document it.

d) 📊 Focus on quality over quantity and consistently try to improve your performance, if you are joining for more than the first time a cycle for the same product try to approach testing in a different way than the last time to get over new areas and find new bugs and if there are no previous issues uploaded to platform (with a blue badge besides) or a Known Issues list, ask in chat if you are allowed to report the same bugs as last time, if those bugs should be fixed for the new build then you could try to reproduce your previous submitted bugs to confirm they have been fixed, this is the most exciting part of testing for me, to see my previous bugs fixed make me feel satisfied because I feel like I helped the customer which is the whole purpose of my job.

3. 🙏 ALWAYS BE KIND, POLITE AND EDUCATED:

a) 💙 “Thank you” is a phrase you always want to use, if you ask something in chat be sure that the answer to your question hasn't been answered in the previous messages or in the overview to try to keep the chat clean and out of repeated questions. NEVER be rude or ask the same question a hundred times just because you're not getting a response, you have to be patient because this is an international platform and we all live in different time zones. If another tester asks for assistance and you know the answer reply in chat noting that you are not the TTL but you think the answer to the question is "x".

b) 😃 A simple :) at the end of a message will help to let the other know you’re being friendly, sometimes messages can be read as hostile so choose the words you are using to communicate.

4. ✌️ DISPUTING A BUG:

a) 😎 We all know the feeling when you get a rejection of a bug report and it’s definitely not a good one, before writing your dispute read again the reason for rejection and if you can, reproduce your bug and re-think about it, read again the Out of scope section and the Known Issues list (if there is one) as well as the previous bugs on platform, if after doing all this you are still certain the rejection is invalid breath twice and become the best lawyer for it, start by reuniting more evidence of it in case you’re asked for more information and don’t ever write a dispute out of anger.

b) ✅ Be courteous and explain clearly why you feel that rejection is not fair, if it’s marked as WAD I’d suggest not to dispute it, the customer knows the product for sure way better than you and that happens even to the best and experienced testers.

5. 😍 BE THE TESTER YOU WOULD LIKE TO WORK WITH:

a) 🤫 When joining a new cycle dedicate to it as it was your product and imagine you’re in an office with all of the team members, help others, if you see an obvious OOS or Dup bug try to send a private message to that tester to help him discard it before it comes to pending status, I am sure you’d like others to advise you if it was the case.

b) 😇 Be nice to other testers, cycles are not a race to see who is better than the other and you never know when are you going to need help from the others.

c) ❓ If you have a question but you can’t ask publicly in chat because you’d be giving a hint ask kindly to the TTL to send you a Private Message but NEVER ask if a bug is a bug or a WAD (this is also against the CoC), part of our job is to decide if a bug is valid or not by reading the overview or the expected behavior explained on the Test Case.

d) 😥 Be humble and accept when you make a mistake, we’re all humans, not robots and there’s nothing wrong with accepting your fault, every mistake is a lesson learned.

6. ✍ BE ORGANIZED:

My way to organize my files in my desktop is very simple but indispensable to keep track of each bug report and cycles. I do it like this:

a) 📂I have 2 folders on my computer desktop, the first one is named “UTEST CURRENT CYCLES” and the second one “UTEST OLD CYCLES” when a new cycle comes I open a new folder inside the first one called “[Name of product] - [date]” for example “UTEST WEBPAGE - 30-07-2018” inside it I open a new folder with the number of report and a simple title to tag it for example “BUG01 - Sign in error” I later save all attachments inside the bug folder and visualize all bug’s folders as a list, when a cycle gets locked I move the cycle’s folder to the “UTEST OLD CYCLES” folder and after a few months when my bugs get approved and paid I delete them. This should look like this:

b) 📘 Have a notebook at hand to make rapid notes when testing, you can note down crucial things listed in the overview to remember, focus areas, names or anything that comes to your mind that you don’t want to forget. I have for example notes on how to set up Charles proxy in simple steps taken from the Academy’s video tutorial, this helps me to set it up every time I need to without watching the video.

c) 📋 On your uTest community account save in your “To do list” important blogs and/or courses so that you have them handy in case you need them.

7. 🔊 MAKE POSITIVE NOISE AND ENGAGE WITH UTEST COMMUNITY:

a) 🤩 Post positive thoughts. Don’t post that you haven’t received invites and that you are bored or that you need to earn money ASAP, this will only annoy the rest and I can assure you that posting negative thoughts won’t lead to more invites.

b) 🙋 uTest community is for sure one of the parts that I enjoy the most, take advantage of this awesome community and when you have a doubt ask in forum for advice, post something nice like a quote or something you want others to know about you, comment, help and support the other testers and write interesting blogs This is the best way to be noticed by others and I can say that gaining a positive reputation will lead to many invites.

I hope this Blog is useful for you, if you find it interesting don’t hesitate on giving a like and commenting. Thanks for reading and happy testing to all![Source]-https://www.utest.com/articles/special-combo-to-be-successful-as-a-utester-tips-tricks-advices-by-karen