What should first tests address?

When planning a testing effort, or if you wish, when designing a Test Plan, some considerations may turn out very useful.

First tests on a given area are decisive. If we consider testing is Learning, or asking valuable questions to the product, then first questions are the most important ones, because we are getting a first contact with the product (first impressions tend to stick in our mind more easily).

When addressing these questions, we should expect answers like: "Yes, this feature is working exactly as I expected", or "Not at all, there is no way this could work". Answers like "in this particular situations, this might not work", or "I think this is working, but I am not sure if this is very useful" are discardable at an early stage, because we are trying to gather basic information, not exploring detailed scenarios.

We should seek the most common scenario, the main functionality, and try to setup ideal conditions so the software succeeds. At this point, we may say if the feature is working, or on the other hand, if it is not working at all.

Even after pass the very first test, after we say the feature is working, we will increase complexity of testing, but always trying to go for the next simpler and most common scenario that someone might want. This way we achieve:

-Continuous and steady knowledge growth, easier and logical learning. Our mental model of the product is built from the basis to the upper
structure, not the other way.

-Efficient Testing effort, every results are probably matched to our mental model, which is growing continuously, thus minimizing gaps in the complexity levels of our knowledge. Suppose we go for a complex scenario at a very early stage, and we find it is not working. My experience tells me that the test is often discarded, or at least it will have to be repeated later, after do some more simple tests. Often what we see as a product failure, is a (tester) knowledge failue, because we are exploring conditions and scenarios for which it was not built.

Because our knowledge in this early stage is extremely dynamic, Exploratory Testing (ET) may be very efficient, due to itts adaptability and dynamism (see literature on ET)