5. Triage

If heuristic testing is based on ``a commonsense rule (or set of rules) intended to increase the probability of solving some problem''. We need to first ask ourselves what the ``problem'' we're trying to solve is. ``Things going 'boom''' is one answer, but lets be honest with ourselves. We're actually ok with some things going ``boom''. If we weren't we'd be working for NASA. Every other development house I know of regularly releases software with bugs in it. As long as nothing too important breaks and nothing breaks in a way that leaves you looking like an idiot there's a good chance you're willing to live with it, for a while at lest. So, now that we've admitted the truth to ourselves, we can start triaging our app.

Triage is a system used by medical or emergency personnel to ration limited medical resources when the number of injured needing care exceeds the resources available to perform care so as to treat those patients in most need of treatment who are able to benefit first.

The word triage is a French word meaning "sorting", which itself is derived from the Latin tria, meaning "three". The term literally means sorting into three categories.[3]

In medical triaging there are three states ``minor'', ``delayed'', ``immediate'' and ``morgue''. Yeah, I don't know either. Maybe the French didn't want to think about the dead ones... Anyway, your app's new features, refactorings, and bugs can also be triaged into the same categories, although you'll probably want to use different names for the categories depending on where you're doing your triage.