Massachusetts QA Fails
What happens when things do not go through QA
Finding QA "misses" that has happened in Massachusetts has been tricky. Every company has their issues, and not all of it makes the headlines.
I did manage to find these two stories when QA Testing would have helped avoid the public embarrassment. I'll continue to look and when I find others, I'll link them to this post:
Dorchester Historical Society Holiday Card - 2018
The Issue
The Dorchester Historical Society sent out postcards in mid-November letting people know of an upcoming open house. The problem was that the wording of the card. The card read: " We're dreaming of a white Dorchester."
Once people got the postcard, they started complaining on social media on the double meaning of the message. The Dorchester Historical Society realized the mistake and responded on social media that they were removing the graphic from social media.
We are very truly sorry about our graphic used for this event. This was an unfortunate oversight on our part and the event photograph has been removed from our social media. We were simply changing the words to the classic Christmas carol and did not think it through properly. https://t.co/2Anki4JF6N
' Dorchester Historical Society (@DotHistorical) November 26, 2018
Lesson We All Can Learn From This
It doesn't hurt to test the Holiday Card design in front of customers or employees. Find out what they think of it. It's not only a chance to see if the intended message gets across but if there's anything that needs to be corrected.
Massachusetts RMV Tells Thousands their License are Being Suspended -2018
The Issue
In April 2018, the Massachusetts RMV send notices to more than 9,000 drivers that their licenses would be suspended because of outstanding fines.
The notices were wrong as the recently installed software had a technical glitch. The RMV identified the problem immediately and send out additional letters to drivers letting them know of the mistake. In addition, they put notices on their website and in the wait queue when calling the DMV.
Lesson We All Can Learn From This
Always Test, Test, Test, new software implementations. It cost the DMV a lot of money to fix the issue - mailing additional letters and updating various customer point of contacts.
You didn't need to test to make sure that all the addresses are qualified matches - but a good sample would have indicated a problem with the DB query.