How do you test software you wrote?

The person who built it already knows the way through. That is the problem.

You know which button works. You know the order. You skip the screen that confused you, because you already fixed it in your head. The next person does not have your head. They have the screen.

What do people actually do about that?

A lot of us click the path we already believe, once, and call it done. Some of us hand it to a teammate and then talk them through the stall. That tests the explanation, not the software. Some of us wait. The ticket comes from a stranger, on a day we are not standing there.

The people who get past it do something plainer. They give it to someone who did not write it, and they do not help. They write the steps in the words on the buttons before anyone clicks. Then they watch the place the person stops. That stop is the part the suite never had a name for.

A function that returns and a person who finished the job are two different tests. Most of us are only running the first one.

If you build software other people have to operate, how are you seeing it without your own hands on it?