Nov 24, During the process of software testing life cycle, the team of testers prepares multifarious documents that enable them to perform the process of testing accurately and effectively. Test case, which is prepared by software testers before test execution, is an integral part of any testing process.
These define a set of conditions that enable testers to validate a particular feature or component of the software application. Hence, let us delve into a discussion on test case, which will help you understand its significance in the software testing life cycle STLC. Prepared by the team of testers before the execution of a testing process, the test case is a document that consists of various crucial details about the process of testing. From test data to preconditions, expected results and more, this document offers testers all the necessary information about the testing process.
In short, a test case is a set of conditions and variables prepared to verify the compliance of a software functionality against the specified requirements. Moreover, with the assistance of test case, the team of testers can find problems in the requirements or design of an application and make necessary changes to validate its quality, functionality, and effectiveness.
To write test cases is an extremely important task, which is usually considered irrelevant and insignificant by the team of testers. However, by creating this document- before the inception of the testing process -the team can increase the effectiveness as well as the accuracy of testing.
Other important features of a test case are:. Test cases can be found of two types, formal and informal test cases. These details will help in clarifying various responsibilities and convey the specific goals for every team member. Mentioning team goals and business objectives is of great importance.
Define all of your important goals in short points. Briefly and clearly mention the strategic aims of all the actions that will be taken. Answer a few questions like why is the product being built? It may be worth linking user stories that can strengthen the project. It is generally a short description of probable customer actions and the goal they would want to achieve. This is a condition to indicate that the goal of development is met.
As a part of good practice, all these questions should be recorded and tracked. Make a list of those things as they would help you prioritize features and. All the activities surrounding product development are covered under process documentation. Process documentation helps to make development well-planned and more organized. This documentation requires some in-depth planning and paperwork before the project can be started and even during the process follows.
Some common types of documentation, in this case, are mentioned below:. These documents are generally created before the project takes off and continue to update as it proceeds. Reports reflect the use of time and human resources during development. Reports can be prepared on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis as needed.
These documents focus on recording the ideas and thoughts of engineers during project implementation. While working papers are not the major source of information, racking them makes it possible to retrieve specific project details whenever needed.
Standards include various UX and coding standards that the team has to stick by throughout the process. Mostly, process documents belong to specific phases or processes.
Therefore, they become obsolete and outdated within a short time. While they can significantly help in completing similar tasks and implementations, these documents should necessarily be part of the development process. Also, with these documents, the entire development process becomes easier to manage and transparent.
The main intention of process documentation is to eliminate more and more system documentation. In that case, writing a minimal documentation plan is always good.
All the information should be mentioned clearly as per your assumption. While software requirements specifications are important to know what features should be present in the software product being developed, your approach towards these requirements affects the end product and processes along the way. Defining your software development requirements matters because of the following reasons. A test strategy is a document that describes the software testing approach to achieve testing objectives.
This document includes information about team structure and resource needs along with what should be prioritized during testing. A test strategy is usually static as the strategy is defined for the entire development scope. A test plan usually consists of one or two pages and describes what should be tested at a given moment.
This document should contain:. A test case specifications document is a set of detailed actions to verify each feature or functionality of a product. Usually, a QA team writes a separate specifications document for each product unit. Test case specifications are based on the approach outlined in the test plan. A good practice is to simplify specifications description and avoid test case repetitions.
Test checklist is a list of tests that should be run at a particular time. It represents what tests are completed and how many have failed. All points in the test checklists should be defined correctly. Try to group test points in the checklists. This approach will help you keep track of them during your work and not lose any. If it helps testers to check the app correctly, you can add comments to your points on the list. This document should describe known problems with the system and their solutions.
It also should represent the dependencies between different parts of the system. Their documentation informs developers how to effectively use and connect to the required APIs. API documentation is a deliverable produced by technical writers as tutorials and guides. This type of documentation should also contain the list of all available APIs with specs for each one. As the name suggests, user documentation is created for product users.
However, their categories may also differ. So, you should structure user documentation according to the different user tasks and different levels of their experience. Generally, user documentation is aimed at two large categories:. The documentation created for end-users should explain in the simplest way possible how the software can help solve their problems. Such user instructions can be provided in the printed form, online, or offline on a device. Here are the main types of the user documents:.
The complete manual includes exhaustive information and instructions on how to install and operate the product. It lists the hardware and software requirements, detailed description of the features and full guidelines on how to get the most out of them, example inputs and outputs, possible tips and tricks, etc. The troubleshooting guide gives end-users information on how to find and resolve possible issues that might arise when using the product. For a detailed overview, check our article dedicated to user documentation.
Some parts of user documentation, such as tutorials and onboarding, in many large customer-based products are replaced with onboarding training. Nevertheless, there are still complex systems remaining that require documented user guides. User documentation requires technical writers to be more imaginative. Online end-user documentation may include the following sections:. Written in plain language with visual materials and step-by-step instructions included, user guides can become a powerful marketing tool and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Besides, to provide the best service for end-users, you should collect your customer feedback continuously. The wiki system is one of the more useful practices. It helps to maintain the existing documentation. You can create your wiki pages using a wiki markup language and HTML code. Usually, administration docs cover installation and updates that help a system administrator with product maintenance.
Here are standard system administrators documents:. Process documentation covers all activities surrounding product development. The value of keeping process documentation is to make development more organized and well-planned.
This branch of documentation requires some planning and paperwork both before the project starts and during the development. Here are common types of process documentation:. Plans, estimates, and schedules. These documents are usually created before the project starts and can be altered as the product evolves.
Reports and metrics. Reports reflect how time and human resources were used during development. They can be generated on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Consult our article on agile delivery metrics to learn more about process documents such as velocity chats, sprint burndown charts, and release burndown charts. Working papers.
The majority of process documents are specific to the particular moment or phase of the process. As a result, these documents quickly become outdated and obsolete. But they still should be kept as part of development because they may become useful in implementing similar tasks or maintenance in the future. Also, process documentation helps to make the whole development more transparent and easier to manage. The main goal of process documentation is to reduce the amount of system documentation.
In order to achieve this, write the minimal documentation plan. List the key contacts, release dates, and your expectations with assumptions. Product roadmaps are used in Agile software development to document vision, strategy, and overall goals of the project.
Roadmaps are used as process documents to keep the course of development in sync with initial goals. Depending on the type of product roadmap, it can express high-level objectives, prioritization of tasks, the sprint timeline, or low-level details. A strategic roadmap is a high-level strategic document, that contains overall information on the project. Strategic roadmaps usually state a vision and long-term goals. In the case of agile product development, a roadmap can be arranged in themes.
Themes are multiple tasks that a team must complete and are somehow connected. Grouping the information around the themes makes a roadmap highly flexible and updatable, which is a great fit for sprint-based development. The best advice concerning strategic roadmapping is to include only important information.
Otherwise, you risk turning your roadmap into a clumsy scheme, difficult to both understand and maintain. Source: productplan. A technology roadmap or IT roadmap is a low-level document that describes technical requirements and the means of technology implementation. IT roadmaps are quite detailed. Prepare Good Test Cases: A good test case is one that has a high probability of detecting an undiscovered defect, not one that shows that the program works correctly.
Describe your Expectations Clearly in Test Case:. A necessary part of every test case is a description of the expected result. Avoid on-the-fly testing: Avoid any type of Testing which can not be reproduced. Write test cases for extreme Conditions: Good practice is to write test cases for valid as well as invalid input conditions. Rigorous inspection of Test results: Thoroughly inspect the results of each test.
Be vigilant of birth of fresh defects: As the number of detected defects in a piece of software increases, the probability of the existence of more undetected defects also increases.
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