EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The executive summary helps the publisher get a quick perspective on what the major problems are, and also provides a useful summary for management. Asterisks (*****) indicate places where client or product names are removed to protect client confidentiality.

Example 1: The first round of testing on a new version of a program.
"The program is not very stable and we received many General Protection and Invalid Page Faults while doing word searches. Although the interface of this version of the program is much more streamlined and easier to use than the previous version, there are still aspects of it that are awkward. We noted many problems with the installation of the CDs. Since this is a two CD program, the instructions should make it clear which CD should be in the drive at startup."

Example 2: Summary from the first round of a much simpler product.
"The product largely worked as expected. There are problems with the custom install options. The product install does not work with long directory names or directory names with spaces. We also had trouble printing from **** in Windows 95. We also had problems printing the User Guide file supplied using Word 2000."

Example 3: A job specifically to check a program's ability to run from a network.
"We spent a few hours running the program standalone and the rest of the time checking various network installation combinations. In our short test, we did not see any problems with running **** from a network CD-ROM drive, whether single or multi-user. However, the network instructions as written are wrong, and we suspect most users won't figure out how to make a network installation work themselves. The lack of an uninstaller will cause problems as well."

Example 4: A reference type product with audio clips and animations.
"Five of our systems are unable to play the animations associated with encyclopedia articles on the elements. The product also crashes on a very erratic basis. A number of formulas did not display with the correct symbols on all of our systems. Also, many of the maps' information sheets do not display in all cases. In at least some of the illustrations, there were printing problems. The Help files do not work on NT 4.0 systems. We have also noted a number of content errors."