fcc-cuts-vids-heuristic

Overview

FCC CUTS VIDS is Michael Kelly's touring heuristic, published on his blog on 20 September 2005. It names eleven tours, each a short reconnaissance pass over an application with one question in mind. Kelly introduced it as a companion to his test-reporting heuristic, writing "I think I will need something similar for application touring. Here is my attempt: FCC CUTS VIDS" (michaeldkelly.com).

The tours answer what does this product even consist of - they are aimed at a tester who does not yet know the application. That is the axis that separates them from the seven tours in exploratory-tours-reference, which come from Whittaker's Exploratory Software Testing (2009) and frame a themed bug hunt on a product the tester already understands. Kelly's tours precede that work by four years and are used earlier in the lifecycle: recon first, mission after.