How We Test

OUR TESTERS FOLLOW A CAREFUL DISCIPLINE designed to explore many dimensions of a trading tool whether we are building something for you or are evaluating your public offerings.

The tester group looks at three trader tool aspects specifically:

• bugs - failures of the tool to meet the specification
• usability - ways in which the tool impedes a trader's attempt to do things within the specification
• expandability - ways in which the tool impedes reasonable use beyond the specification

We take a very hard-line position about usability and expandability. This is in contrast to other groups. For example, an indicator not only analyzes price action, it also displays a signal of some kind to the trader regarding that price action. We tend to take strong approach to recognition ease of that price action signal in addition to making sure that price pattern is properly detected by the underlying algorithm.

We emphasize usability because perception errors will occur as they would even with a live human friend. So, a very relevant concern is how the indicator signal can be seen on the screen as well as its faithfulness to pattern capture

We stress expandability because inevitably a user is more imaginative about the ways to employ an indicator because of rising expectations associated with computers that can now seemingly do anything. We believe, therefore, that for any trading tool to survive, tool designers must pay attention to reasonable applications of the product outside of the original target design.

More on bug testing...
More on usability...
More on expandability...