I’ve known of Jason Huggins for a couple years and we had exchanged emails a couple times about Selenium over that period. This was the first time we had met in person though. Another person off the list.

Anyhow, he was at GLSEC to do the closing keynote in which he compared the evolution of movies (silent to talkies) to how people learn how to use an application (rtfm to rtfv) with the advent of screencasts. Even if you take away the points for using a Three Amigos clip, there were a couple mind blowing ideas presented; especially if you are a small Agile shop trying to show progress to client’s on a iteration-by-interation basis. (Steve, this is directed at you.)

What if you engineered your automated tests to build a screencast that the client could then run to show completion and functionality? We have the technology (here too) to do most of it. All that is left is the glue to put it all together.

These could also be given to the end user as a video of how to use the product at which point the tests really are the documentation.

If I didn’t have so much already on my plate I would totally go off hacking right now…