[mreiland]

it isn't that black and white. Many times it's simply a misunderstanding, the developer isn't actually testing the right thing. Saying "works on my machine" is the opening to a dialogue that involves "can you show me what you did?"

[mark-r]

Sometimes it can be as simple as initiating something via keyboard vs. mouse.

[mreiland]

Are you implying it's a matter of getting your customers to use their brain?

I freelance and therefore I can be a jackass without direct monetary repercussions, perhaps that's why I don't view it that way.

Because I struggle to think of a lot of situations where I've been unable to replicate an issue a Client has reported where it hasn't turned into a miscommunication/misunderstanding of some sort.

[mark-r]

No, not at all! If you've been in the business long enough, you learn that people have different preferred ways of working. Some will use menus, some will use icons. Some will use keyboard shortcuts. Some will use drag-and-drop. If the bug description doesn't specify how they performed an action, and you assume your preferred way while they used another, you can easily be unable to replicate their problem.

I don't remember any specific instance where I had this misunderstanding, but a coworker had it happen and will never forget it.

[DCoder]

In the context of web development, one of the biggest offenders (in my experience) is coders who attach a "validate this form/submit it via AJAX" handler to the form submit button's click event, instead of the form's submit event. If I try using Enter to submit the form, their code doesn't run.

[mreiland]

I misunderstood you, I thought you were implying customers needed to use their brain, but looking closer you did say keyboard and mouse and not keyboard and chair :)

I personally see it all the time, but I interact directly with my customers and it's always possible I'm terrible at communication. They'll say things like "X doesn't work on page Y", and It'll end up being a problem with a single link they clicked on because the data for it is such that it causes a problem (that sort of thing).

They don't know that's the issue either, you have to work with them on it.