The video makes the case that the value to be gained from human-computer cooperation is being ignored far too often. A focus on maximizing the results based on improving the ability to cooperate is worthwhile.

What this means in practice is people taking more responsibility for using computers as tools to accomplish what is needed. This already happens a great deal but in a way which is unexamined and often therefore the current methods leave a great deal of room for improvement. We rarely focus on how to enhance the co-operation, we mainly see the software as one separate part of the process and a person's contribution as another separate part of the process. Focusing on computers (and software) as tools used by people to accomplish objectives is helpful.

Viewing software as a tool used to achieve an aim mirrors the idea of a company viewing their products and services as solving specific problems for customers. The tool is valuable in how it is used by people - not in some abstract way (say technical specifications).

Weaknesses in how people use the product, service or software are often weaknesses in focusing on the way people will really use it versus how it is "supposed" to be used. By understanding the process that matters is one of a person and the computer together adding value, we can create more effective software applications.

People often try to design software solutions that remove the need for humans to be involved. For complex problems, though, it is often much more effective to design solutions where people take advantage of computer tools to achieve results. People should use computers to automate the things that make sense to automate, keep track of data, and make calculations, thus leaving themselves free to use their superior insight, vision, intuition, and flexibility in making judgements.

Hexawise is built to take advantage of this type of cooperation. Even though it is a "test design tool," Hexawise doesn't take the lead role in designing the tests. Humans do. Humans do the things that they're better than computers at, such as (a) thinking up clever test ideas and test inputs, and (b) identifying, from dozens of possible parameters, which are the ones that are most important to vary in order to achieve potentially interesting interactions from test to test. Computer algorithms aren't nearly as good as humans at such tasks. Computers, though, will run circles around any human who tries to construct a set of tests such that (a) the variation between each test is as different as possible, (b) the wasteful repetition of combinations of values that appear together in different tests is minimized, (c) gaps in coverage are minimized (by, e.g., ensuring that every single pair or every single 3-way combination of tests appears in at least one test case), and (d) all of the above objectives are achieved in the fewest possible test cases. Computer algorithms eat those kind of challenges for breakfast. And complete them without error. In seconds.

Said a different way, people are better at figuring out interesting ideas to test. Once those are identified, those test conditions and other test ideas need to be combined together and put into tests. Generating a highly efficient, maximally varied, minimally repetitive set of tests based on a given set of test inputs is something computer algorithms are more effective at than a person.

Hexawise is not intended to eliminate the need for software testing experts. Hexawise is designed to allow software testing experts to focus on what they do well and allow Hexawise to make everything else easy (creating test plans based on software experts inputs etc.). This allows software testing experts to spend their time thinking by removing time consuming tasks they have to do. Hexawise also creates test plan coverage that is simply beyond the ability of people to create no matter how much time they were given. And software testing experts provide the inputs that no matter how much time the Hexawise software could not create in any amount of time.

Hexawise is designed to optimize the ease of cooperation. We spend a great deal of time optimizing the software to make it most useful for people. The design decisions made in creating a software application are very different if the users are meant to thoughtfully interact with the application.

We see Hexawise as an extension of the software tester. We seek to optimize how a person can use Hexawise to create the most value. The measure is how much more effective the testing solutions are, not just how Hexawise performs in isolation from the user.

A great deal of our time has been spent on how to help software testing experts use Hexawise most effectively. These efforts often take the form of many many small improvements that create an experience that is more similar to cooperation between two parties with different strengths instead of a more typical user experience of forcing you to do whatever the software demands.

Related: Gamers Use Foldit to Solve Enzyme Configuration in 3 Weeks That Stumped Scientists for Over a Decade - Ten Reasons to Use Software Testing Checklists and Cheat Sheets