Test Cases and Test Scenarios

Question 1

What is a checklist?

Answer 1

A set of ideas.
Kind of a draft for further activities.
Fast and simple to write.

Question 2

Provide recommendations in form of good checklists writing approaches.

Answer 2

Possible recommendations:

1. By application parts, sub-parts, sub-sub-parts.
2. By user scenarios and actions.
3. By subject matter scenarios and cases.
4. By testing objectives and quality criteria.

Question 3

What are the two main test design techniques?

Answer 3

Equivalence class and the boundaries are the two main ones.
(A possible option would be thinking what software should or shouldn't do in some situation.)

Question 4

What is the equivalence class?

Answer 4

A set of data that is treated the same by a module or that should produce the same result.

Question 5

What are the boundaries?

Answer 5

The boundaries ​​is a test design technique that performs additional tests on the “edges” of each equivalence class.

Question 6

What is a test case?

Answer 6

A set of preconditions, inputs, actions, expected results and postconditions, developed based on test conditions. Test case always follows some purpose.

Question 7

What are the key fields of a test case?

Answer 7

~ ID
~ Priority
~ Related requirement
~ Module and submodule
~ Test case title, preparations and steps
~ Expected results

Question 8

Elaborate. Key field of a test case: ID

Answer 8

~ Unique

~ Meaningful

Question 9

Elaborate. Key field of a test case: Priority

Answer 9

~ Shows how important this test case is
~ Represented by letters, numbers or words (A, B, C, D, E // 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 // “High”, “Medium”, “Low”)
~ Correlated with:
~ the requirement importance;
~ potential severity of a defect that this test case may detect.

Question 10

Elaborate. Key field of a test case: Related requirement

Answer 10

~ Contains the ID of the requirement this test case is intended to test.
~ Facilitates traceability between requirements and test cases.

Question 11

Elaborate. Key field of a test case: Module and submodule

Answer 11

~ Shows the application sub-parts covered by the test case.
~ Simplifies understanding of test case purpose.
~ Module and submodule are parts of the application, NOT actions!

Question 12

Elaborate. Key field of a test case: Test case title

Answer 12

~ Shows the main idea of the test case.
~ Populates the test cases list.
~ Is one of the main data sources when searching for a particular test case.
~ A test case should ALWAYS have a title!

Question 13

Elaborate. Key field of a test case: Preparations

Answer 13

~ Optional
~ Describes actions and conditions to be done or met before the test case itself begins.
~ Often does not interfere with the application under test (unlike “Steps”).

Question 14

Elaborate. Key field of a test case: Steps

Answer 14

~ Steps describe action sequence to perform during the test case execution.

Question 15

Elaborate. Key field of a test case: Expected results

Answer 15

~ Expected results describe the application reaction to the specific input or action.
~ Both steps and expected results have the same numeric id’s.

Question 16

List all good Test Cases properties.

Answer 16

How to determine a Good Test Case:
~ Somewhere between being too specific or too general
~ Somewhere between being too simple or too complex
~ Either independent or reasonably linked
~ Follows its goals without retreat
~ Does not contain unnecessary steps
~ Not redundant with other test cases
~ Makes found defects obvious
~ Performs some non-trivial actions

Question 17

Definition of a simple test case.

Answer 17

A simple test case operates with single object (or the main object is obvious), it contains a small number of trivial actions.

Question 18

Definition of a complex test case.

Answer 18

A complex test case operates with several equal objects and/or contains many non-trivial actions.

Question 19

Pros of test case simplicity.

Answer 19

~ Easy to understand
~ Easy to execute
~ Ease to see the defects
~ Found defects are obvious

Question 20

Cons of test case simplicity.

Answer 20

~ Too simple test cases are nothing more than a step or several steps of more complex test cases.

Question 21

Pros of test case complexity.

Answer 21

~ More chances to break something
~ More simular to real user actions
~ Developers rarely test such things

Question 22

Cons of test case complexity.

Answer 22

~ Too complex test cases take a lot of time to write and maintain

Question 23

Definition of an independent test case.

Answer 23

An independent test case does not reference any test cases and is not referenced by any of them.

Question 24

Definition of a linked test case.

Answer 24

A linked test case has a place in a chain of test cases.

Question 25

What is a Test Suite?

Answer 25

A set of test cases or test procedures to be executed in a specific test cycle.

Question 26

Sets of test cases can be free or linked. Name the difference between the two.

Answer 26

Free set of test cases doesn’t imply any specific execution order, it only composes several test cases together; Linked set, however, implies specific execution order.

Question 27

What are the four questions we must have answer for if we want to make good test cases?

Answer 27

1. What is this?
2. Who needs it and what for?
3. What is the usage process?
4. How can something go wrong?