Introducing the Tester Diaries

Stuart Hibberd, head of O2’s testing team, explains the crucial role O2’s testing team plays in launching new products.

How would you like to try new phones before they go on sale? To get a chance to use them before anyone else? Maybe even weeks in advance of them appearing in O2 stores?

That’s what my team, O2’s device testing team, does day in and day out. They’re not just playing with the phones though – it’s their job to test every single aspect of each and every phone before it goes on sale through O2. They need to make sure that everything works smoothly and that our millions of customers get the absolute best experience with their new phone. And where there is a problem with a phone, our testers work with the manufacturer to come up with a solution and then test the solution to make sure it works like it should.

In the past, the work our testing team has done has usually taken place quietly in the background. We’re now going to talk more openly about our testing procedures in a series of Tester Diary blog posts. I can’t promise that we’ll always be able to go into specific detail – after all, problems can (and do) appear on every phone during testing but are gone by the time they go on sale – if they haven’t, we haven’t finished the job yet! Instead we’ll aim to give you more information about what the team’s doing and why. I’m also keen to hear what you’d like to hear about from my team so please leave us your comments at the bottom of each post.

Our testers play a very important role in launching phones and I look forward to telling you more about it very soon.