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The motivation for gaming is similar between men and women. Both use online gaming as a form of socialization. The difference is in the types of games played. Males play more games of competition, where cooperation is at the team level against another team or AI.  Female players favor games where cooperation is more at the individual, person-to-person level. Both men and women play online role playing games, although women pay more attention to the appearance of their avatars, while men are more concerned with the accouterments, in other words what the avatar is carrying.

Both men and women play online games for the purpose of fulfilling fantasies. For women, these are often fantasies of personal strength and beauty. Women who play three to ten or more hours a week tend to enjoy challenges that contradict gender norms, and they enjoy creating female avatars with exaggerated strength and beauty characteristics. Men also like to exaggerate their avatars, indicating that idealized self projection is a common trait in both sexes.

As of late the computer game industry has encountered changes in the demographics of computer game players. In particular, the field is no longer dominated by male adolescents. The age of the average player has risen to around thirty-seven, with over twenty percent being over fifty and roughly forty-two percent of players are now female.

The computer game industry has noticed the rise in the number of female players and has begun to create and distribute games with women in mind. Unfortunately, their view of women is sometimes a bit out of date. Still, the male dominated gaming industry is beginning to understand that women are not only interested in shopping, interior design and the colour pink. The gender differences in online gaming aren’t all that great.

It's fast becoming a digital world. Over a billion people are now engaged in online game play internationally, every year. Playing online isn't just an advanced form of diversion. It is also a form of psychological release. Both men and women can step outside themselves and interact with others, whether over a game of cards, on a game board or adventuring within a complete virtual world.

Earlier this year, Wells Fargo disclosed that almost 400 of their customers were foreclosed on due to a computer error. This week, they revealed that an expanded review identified 145 additional customers who lost their homes due to the glitch.

The impacted customers were foreclosed on because Wells Fargo's system incorrectly determined that they were ineligible for loan modification programs. Between March 15, 2010, and April 30, 2015, their computer system calculated inflated, inaccurate attorney's fees for some customers in foreclosure. These incorrect fee amounts pushed some customers over the minimum threshold to qualify for loan modification and repayment programs and left them subject to foreclosure. The error and its impact on customers was kept quiet until it was revealed by regulatory filings back in August.

According to Wells Fargo, with these latest updated figures, the total number customers erroneously foreclosed on rises to approximately 545, out of 870 total customers who were denied or not offered a loan modification for which they should have been approved.

Wells Fargo has apologised for the error, set aside $8 million to compensate those who lost their homes because of it, and is conducting ongoing internal reviews of the cause of the glitch and the overall performance of their mortgage loan modification system. They are in the process of reaching out to impacted customers and have been offering no-cost, independent mediation services to resolve matters.

The progressive financial reform group Americans for Financial Reform, however, is not impressed with Wells Fargo's mea culpa. Their senior policy counsel, Linda Jun, released a statement that called the apology "hollow and insufficient," demanding that the bank complete a comprehensive review that identifies all affected homeowners and provides full compensation to them.

This glitch is the latest in a series of missteps from Wells Fargo, after admitting to pressuring employees to open unauthorized bank and credit card accounts to meet sales objectives, requiring customers to purchase unneeded car insurance, and charging confusing or illegitimate fees that later needed to be refunded. Just last month, Wells Fargo was assessed a $65 million penalty after being sued by the New York Attorney General for misleading their investors.

Websites should be tested consistently, starting early in the development cycle and often throughout development. If possible, different aspects of website performance should be modularized and tested before full integration.

While creating a website is fairly easy with modern online tools, these tools don't usually provide for real world testing capability and are not a good substitute for an actual development cycle. There really is no alternative to user testing and this means understanding and identifying common tasks so that usability goals can be set and standard user testing protocols can then be implemented.

Perhaps the single most effective design strategy is to make certain that the site itself is user centered. In other words, if it comes down to designing a site that’s convenient for the customer or one that’s convenient for the company, you should design for customer convenience. This includes, but is not limited to, meeting or exceeding accessibility and universal design standards as well as making sure that the website is very mobile friendly. Setting such standards will automatically delineate what the optimum testing protocols are.

Staying in communication with users and potential users is also a very useful strategy. Knowing what users expect and knowing what they liked and didn’t like about other sites with similar themes or purposes can give designers an edge when it comes to instilling usability.

Also, be willing to bring in a fresh set of eyes to test usability before release. It’s very easy for people to get too close to a project and lose objectivity. You should also aim for the highest quality testers possible, the better the testers are, the more likely they will be worth the investment.

Exceeding expectations is the best strategy of all. When it comes to usability, set standards that are high and then go beyond them. Do everything possible to ensure that the user comes first. This will not only guarantee a quality website, but will reflect positively on your company as well.

 A week later we got the notification that we were in the top 200, and then just a few days later the Top 150 as part of Beta. Which brings me to Dublin and why I’m writing my first post. I’m planning on posting one a day.

Why I’ve travelled almost 20,000 kilometers and 30 hours to Dublin

Bugwolf has been in operation for just over two years. We are currently headquartered in Australia and have been bootstrapped for that time. Just a few weeks ago I started capital raising, which is the main reason for bringing us to Dublin. The reality of raising capital from this neck of the woods while being headquartered in Australia is slim. But we’re coming here with an open mind and if we come across the right investor we are open to moving headquarters. So we're here mostly raising capital but always hoping to connect with new clients.

The madness we created before we left Melbourne for summit

When I was accepted into Summit I called a good mate Brendan Yell a startup rockstar plus a great bloke to get advice about Summit. Brendan introduced me to Johanna based in Ireland who invited me to an exclusive dinner with 50 others Monday night with a rockstar investor and CEO invite list including Dave McClure. Before I left Melbourne I was contacted by Kathryn from IDA. We had a coffee a few weeks ago. Kathryn kindly made a few intros before I left Melbourne. Suzie and I worked hard all week reaching out to investors.
 
Day one started by waking up at 5am and going for a 3km run 

I arrived yesterday which I’m calling day zero because traveling 30 plus hours felt like I missed a bunch of things including a few days. The intros Kathryn made when back in Melbourne turned out to be outstanding. Today I met one the top investors in Ireland, Brian Caulfield from Draper Esprit. After this meeting I caught up with the IDA team and got an invite to their opening party Wednesday night. Last year, Bono attended (but not sure he is coming this year). I’m also invited to an IDA innovation breakfast tomorrow.

Evening one included a pub crawl for 35 mins followed by a kick ass dinner

It was a quick pub crawl. Spent 30 mins over a beer having a chat with a bloke from Norway. The dinner was sensational. Met some interesting people from a range of countries. Spent some time chatting with David Booth from AngelList, a New Zealand fella who is running AngelList in the UK and ripper bloke. Dave McClure was there and David Booth did me a large one and made a quick introduction to Dave as he was leaving who kindly gave me his card. We are set to catch up for a quick chat next few days. Dave is  a great investor. He understands tech like no other and also invests in Australian startups.

A couple of key takeaways from being in Dublin day one and evening

So much has happened in 24 hours. Being bootstrapped I’ve always had to make a small amount of money go a long way. Every work trip is carefully measured which is why I hardly go on them. We compare every dollar spent on marketing against alternative strategies which we've measured. This trip has already paid for itself. I received outstanding advice from Brian. He instantly understood my business and the problem we are solving. The IDA were fantastic and have gone the extra mile to help. I picked up a new client via the app. And we’ve arranged half a dozen investor meetings from our outreach. 

Tomorrow the conference starts. Adios amigos (or at least until my next post).

Often times, the testing process is greatly influenced by the methodologies which testers are familiar with.  This is why it's important to not only hire experienced and skilled testers, but to ensure that testers  know and can do those tests which generate the most value for the project.

While testing should be planned, there is no way to plan for every contingency.  And so, there is no method that works every time under every circumstance.

There are many different software testing methodologies that are useful at different points in the software development process.  For example, unit testing is mostly performed by developers while user acceptance testing is mostly performed by end users or people representing end users.

The term smoke test is a colloquialism derived from mechanical technology which basically means turning on the machine and letting it run to see if it starts smoking. In other words, run the program and see what happens. This may seem like a rather undisciplined way of going about things, but it's actually quite practical. There are times when there is no other way to find out if there's something wrong.

Therefore, using the right software testing method has a great deal to do with where in the development cycle you are. And what methods you use are often a matter of judgement and experience. This doesn’t mean that software development doesn’t follow a general pattern that’s pretty much the same from application to application. It does mean that the details can be different although the circumstances are similar.

Different applications may have different testing requirements. For example, there are different types of user acceptance testing that occurs at different points in the development cycle. Alpha testing takes place early and its main purpose is to ensure usability. Beta testing takes place late and is intended to provide feedback for improvement. Then there’s testing for compliance with regulations, testing for contract compliance, and operational readiness testing among others. And black box testing, often considered a functional test, is itself a form of user testing.

The many different testing methods have evolved over time to more efficiently answer questions and discover defects. Using the right software testing methods depends on the knowledge and skill of the development and testing teams. Automation may take a lot of the drudgery out of software testing, however there is, as yet, no substitute for the human being.

One of the most common elements of corporate culture is its attitude toward success. Success is rewarded while failure is often punished or at least opens the individual up to criticism. As  Atomic Sky co-founder Andy Lamb said in a recent CIO article “We live in a world where people get in trouble from their peers and their boss for taking risks, they are looking for successes all the time because that’s where self-worth comes from.”

However, the startup mindset can cure this legacy corporate culture. Startups are permanently on the front lines with few personnel to deploy. They don’t have the luxury of calling each other on the carpet for failure. Instead, the attitude is to learn from what didn’t work. Also startups are concerned with using technology to solve problems that would otherwise require a considerable workforce.

As Bankwest CIO Andy Weir said in the same article, “Recently, we discovered that like most organisations, we weren’t really good at decision making so we actually engaged in startup thinking and how could we improve decision making across the organisation; how can we use technology. Interestingly, we actually built an app to do that but what we found was that most of the value came from the behaviours that fell off the back of that innovation, which was quite interesting because it reinforces the point around culture.”

Every business's organizational culture is different and yet streamlined thinking is now an important part of any modern business. As Andy Weir said, “Agility, velocity, speed and quality become very important and that’s where startup thinking really comes to the fore and becomes even more important to the organisation.”

Business operates best in a stable political environment, or rather big business operates best. Organizations with a lot of assets and infrastructure react more slowly to change and so prefer a stable platform on which to operate. This is why so many large corporations and financial institutions spend so much time, effort and money in an attempt to make government predictable. Government keeps the society running and manages change across corporate boundaries. This is something that businesses finds difficult to accomplish on their own.  Then the day comes when government isn’t so reliable anymore.  

Fortunately, digital technology makes scalable and coherent transformation possible, whether a business is providing services or products, even if it is not directly involved in an information based industry. The key is in building networks, both within the organization and externally with other organizations.

Networking through digital technology provides numerous advantages. Software enables isolated functions to be linked together for efficiency. Previously internal functions can be outsourced and the money saved and personnel involved can be retasked to creating future growth. It is then possible to build new products and services that add value to the organization. Digital makes it possible to build an agile infrastructure that can successfully sail through political storms.

With a little knowledge and skill, digital technology makes handling disruption possible and profitable, no matter where the disruption comes from.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is a process which helps to ensure the different elements of the application actually work for the user. And, as the user is the individual who will be using the application on a daily basis, this adds considerable value. Yes, it seems like a no brainer, but it’s very easy to get lost in things like Function Testing and System Testing and forget about the user.

The basic point of UAT is to determine how useful the software actually is. This goes beyond simple questions like, “Does the software crash?” to encompass such items as ease of input, load time and resource consumption. Identifying the importance of the software to the user, how useful it will be to them and whether it matches what the user has asked for are all roles of user acceptance testing. Additionally, the process will help identify how easy the software is to use and whether it provides correct and coherent information.

This is why UAT, sometimes known as Beta or End-User Testing, is the final testing protocol. It is there to determine if the application can do what is required in the real world. User Acceptance Testing is less concerned with coding and more concerned with functionality and does it meet the business objectives. This is why it is the crucial and final procedure in testing heuristics.

UAT is the last process before release, so it should include every end user and stakeholder group. When done right, thorough and careful User Acceptance Testing removes the last unknown elements and adds immeasurably to the value, profitability and consumer acceptance of the final product.

Modeling this process in automation makes it possible to increase the level of communication and the speed of data flow between the various stakeholders all along the line. It also enables continuous integration as every individual and team can see and control their element of the process while reducing wait time for delivery or documentation. The software can then move from development and version control, through testing and on to deployment.

The purpose of continuous delivery is to make it possible to deliver new updates and features to the consumer as fast as possible. This is done by modularizing code. These modules are built and unit tested and then submitted to the code base in a process of continuous integration.  Individual features are tested before rollout to ensure quality and conformity with the complete system.

The teams at the various stages of software development, seek to verify added features in different ways. This promotes functionality and minimizes the possibility of buggy software ending up in the hands of users.

The delivery pipeline makes continuous delivery possible. It creates transparency throughout the development process, and allows rapid feedback with every change to the application.This is what continuous integration is all about. It makes certain that the various teams involved can operate with a higher level of confidence because bugs and difficulties can be quickly addressed due to rapid feedback.

The delivery pipeline is there to maintain quality while adding functionality at the same time. This cuts down development time while enabling the organizations to deliver increased value to end users without a commensurate increase in time.

Conversion rates depend heavily on the flow of your site. What is flow? It's how hard or how easy it is for a visitor to move through the site and acquire the information that he or she wants. Good flow has a number of characteristics. First off, it follows the 80/20 rule. This means that the website is giving the visitor information at least 80% of the time, while the visitor need provide information no more than 20% of the time. This should be true even on a heavy input site where a customer must have specific information to purchase specialised equipment. 

Poor web design, or poor business decisions become obvious if a customer must hunt and peck through a site, making various inputs in the hopes of finding what he or she wants, especially if the information required stretches beyond the customer's knowledge. This is an indication that someone has built a site that is convenient for the company but inconvenient for the customer.

A website should be no more complex than it has to be. It should never be loaded up with videos and widgets. Links should be easy to find. If videos are necessary, they should be easily accessible but not intrusive. It's a big mistake to have a video on the landing page that automatically starts running the moment the visitor arrives. This is rude, as you don't know the the visitors connection speed and it's doubly worse if the video is a sales pitch. Your company will seem like a group of hustlers, if the first thing a visitor sees is a sales pitch. Remember, one infographic is often better than an entire video.

Another way to smooth out the flow is to include mini calls to action, easy and reasonable steps, that move the visitor through the sales process where the major call to action, the purchase itself, is only the final step. The key to mini calls is the word “reasonable.” At no time should the visitor feel manipulated.

If you must present complex information, then do it as simply as possible. Use a format that is easy to understand and interact with. For example, interactive infographics are a great idea when it comes to adding items to shopping carts, calculating shipping or making a purchase. Speaking of shipping, let the customer know the shipping cost up front, very few things are as frustrating as only finding out the shipping cost at the last minute. Putting the cost up front makes it easier for the customer to stay within budget and helps minimise shopping cart abandonment.

Communication is the key to a successful ecommerce site. If a chat option is offered, make sure that it's with a knowledgeable representative who can actually help the customer, preferably without escalating the customer’s problem to some faceless bureaucrat up the chain of command. An outsourced rep who knows little or nothing about the business will drive customers away and create the impression that your company doesn't know what it’s doing.

Remember, online sales isn't like brick and mortar retail where a product is simply put on the shelf and the customer buys what he or she wants. Online sales is all about dialog. The company that makes the most sales will be the one that can demonstrate it cares about and wants to communicate with the customer. After all, the Internet is a communication medium. So, always respond quickly to customer communication, whether complaint, question or praise.

The customer’s journey through your site must be engaging. The more engaged the customer, the more likely he or she is to make a purchase.  That engagement comes from good content that is easily accessible, quality communication and a website that visibly places value on every visitor.