We’ve been working on a new version of Elite Email for a while now and with most of the new features almost ready, we’ve been testing, testing, and then testing some more. We simply will not release a product that is buggy because we all know too well how frustrating something can be when it doesn’t work.

This past weekend I went to Nuit Blanche in Toronto and there was a perfect example of why you have to test (and then test more!) an application before you release.

Prior to heading out to the event I downloaded an iPhone app especially made for Nuit Blanche (published by Simply Good Technologies Inc.).

The app had some very cool features, including a GPS locator that would tell you nearby exhibits. The feature that most interested me, however, was the Capturefy technology (more info) . This technology was supposed to let you take a picture on your iPhone of specific “Capturefy” enabled signs put up around the city and then give you additional information on the exhibit.

I have seen technology like this all around Asia (location on billboards, in magazines, on subway ads, and everywhere else you can imagine!) and I was eager to see how it would work at this major event in Toronto.

It turns out the technology was a BUST and did not work at all.

First of all, the vast majority of the event took place outside and all of the Capturefy signs were very dark. How the event organizers overlooked the fact that it gets dark at night and iPhone users won’t be able to take a clear picture is beyond me! So, that was blunder number one, which right off the bat tells me that no one did a trial-run of how this was supposed to work.

I did find some Capturefy signs inside in good lighting and was excited to see if the technology actually worked. But, once again, it did not.

I even had two other people try on their iPhones to see if it was something I was doing wrong (…although I wasn’t sure how I was messing up the ‘point’, ‘click’ wait for results, instructions in the app!), but it didn’t work for them either.

I’m not sure whether they rushed to release this app and skipped over testing or if their test scenarios were under very specific conditions that couldn’t possibly be replicated the night of the event. But, regardless of the reason, the app simply did not work even close to the way it was supposed to and I’m sure that all could have been avoided if they had done proper testing.

Just as a point of reference, we currently have hundreds and hundreds of automated and manual test cases that we run against Elite Email. This way we know that when we release something it actually works the way it’s supposed to!