If you are a software developer or someone who is testing a system that will be deployed, you will often enter plenty of data in user entry fields, such as the name of a person, date of birth, telephone number, etc. We call these dummy data. If you need to input only one or two times, you will often allow your brain to take shortcuts, using names like John Doe, Jane Doe, Tom, Dick and Harry. You resort to phone numbers like 9123456780 or a date of birth like 1-1-1980. However, what happens when you need to enter more than 5 records. That’s when your brain starts ‘thinking’. You will take the effort of coining names or numbers and make sure that you aren’t repeating them across records.
Frankly, I don’t recommend wasting precious brain cells on thinking up unique names, phone numbers or birthdays. Coining values for mundane fields should best be left to automation and your brain should be preserved to do what you do best. Product design, software development and quality assurance.
Today, I present to you my 5 favourite online tools for generating random data for filling in mundane input fields. Some of them generate data that as random as nature itself and hence things feel real. Continue reading “5 online tools for random data”
