Deviations from requirements are not the only kind of bugs
Some of my colleagues and I recently had a casual discussion over lunch about what we would call 'bugs' in different products that we build.
The obvious kinds of bugs that we spoke about were 'behavioural inconsistencies according to some documents'. Examples of such bugs are:
- Behaviour different from the requirements in story tickets, etc.
- UI not according to design mocks
These are obvious bugs. There are also bugs that might not be just inconsistencies from explicitly stated requirements. There could be implicit requirements like data correctness, security, user experience, etc. It might be good for us to speak up about these too. Here are a few examples from our discussion:
Incorrect data or content
- Title doesn't match with the cover image in search results page.
Non-inclusive content
- Content is not inclusive to certain groups of people.
Incorrect translations
- Translations are not easily comprehendible by humans.
Questionable product decisions
- Losing access to certain content immediately after unsubscribing even though user has prepaid for the service till the end of the month.
- Unreasonably difficult to unsubscribe from marketing emails.
Unintentional side effect
- Creating a copy of a picture and saving it on the phone each time a user shares a picture with their contacts.
Unintuitive design
- Inconsistencies in the way users have to select options in a form leading to confusion.
Divergence from mental models
- Switch on the left turning on the bulb on the right. Detailed version of this example can be found here.
Negative feelings evoked
- Error message in CAPS without helpful explanation leading to fear.
Not appealing aesthetics
- Gaming website with dull old-fashioned design and colours on login page.
Missing parity across platforms
- Ability to perform certain action on the Website but not on Android and iOS apps.
Inconsistencies across different pages
- Different styles of back buttons on different pages.
Inconsistent with other products offering similar services
- A video player without option to increase or decrease playback speed while other competitors have been offering this ability from a long time.
Deviation from brand image or claims
- A financial institution claims to be faster than traditional banks but takes an entire week to process payments.
Not updated on time based on new rules or laws
- Ride hailing app unable to update toll charges soon after changes are announced and overcharging passengers for their rides.
- Navigation app showing routes through roads that are closed due to maintenance activities or other events.
Poor performance
- Certain pages taking too long to load leading to frustrated users.
- Apps consuming a lot of battery in the background.
Security or privacy concerns
- Customer support agents having access to more customer data than needed.
- App asking for more app permissions than required.
Compliance related problems
- Storing some information like a user's photo ID for more duration than legally required.
Accessibility issues
- Low contrast causing difficulty in reading especially for users with low vision.
Inadequate discoverability
- No easy way for users to know that a feature they would have liked to use is now released and available on the product.
FAQs absent
- Online help or documentation not available causing people to reach out to customer support each time.
Incorrect analytics
- Incorrect event details tracked when users perform actions. Detailed version of this example can be found here.
Incorrect alerts or monitoring
- Alerts not triggered when they should be triggered and not enough monitoring in place to understand health of the systems.
These are only some of the many different ideas that we could pay attention to while building products. What are some other categories and examples that you can think of?