Tuesday 10 February 2015

Few Tips to Effectively Plan Your Test Case

As a key part of software testing, test cases are used by the testers, developers and management executives. Normally, test cases are used as conditions to evaluate if the software application meets predefined specifications, and is ready to go live. The test cases further provide conditions through which the testers can verify and validate the application’s particular features or functionality. As test cases organize the entire software testing process, it becomes essential for QA professional to plan and write test cases effectively.

Tips to Plan and Write Test Cases More Effectively

independent software testing, web based software testing, hire software test engineerUnderstand the Exact Requirements: To write effective test cases, you must understand specific requirements. Also, you must remember that you must not assume any requirements while writing test cases. If you do not understand any requirement clearly, ask questions to the business analyst or client without involving the developers. Likewise, you must clearly understand the incomplete or ambiguous requirements before writing test cases.

Plan Test Cases to Cover All Requirements: Along the requirements, you also need to understand the features and functionality of the software application clearly. You need to ensure that the planned test cases cover all features and functionality mentioned in the requirement document. It is also a good idea to ensure that no requirement is left untested by using traceability matrix.

Write Independent Test Cases: When you write a test case to track multiple conditions, it becomes difficult to track the testing results and errors. So you need to ensure that each test case assesses only a single condition. Likewise, you must write independent test cases that can be executed without depending on other test cases. The independent test cases will make it easier for testers to easily assess different aspects of the application.

Create Test Suites: You can always accomplish exact scope of testing by avoiding repetition of test cases. Likewise, you must collect and combine generic test cases into test suites. The test suites will help you in saving the time and efforts required for writing standard common test cases. Further, the test suites can also be used throughout the project life cycle.

Decide Testing Priority: The significance of individual test cases will vary according to product, component or feature. So you must determine and assign testing priority while each test case. Once you assign the testing priority, the high priority test cases will be picked first during the execution followed by the medium and low priority test cases.

Break Complex Test Cases into Smaller Parts: When a test case has too many steps, it becomes difficult for testers to identify and fix the bug. There are chances that the tester may have to repeat all test steps to ensure that the bug is fixed. So while planning, you must break the large and complex test cases into several smaller ones.

Focus on Preparing Proper Data: While writing test cases, you will need a variety of input data. During testing, the application can pick the required input data from various predefined data locations. Also, the testers can provide input data while executing test cases. To effectuate test case writing, you must focus on the input data formats, and use the predefined data values to decide software and hardware requirements.

Decide the Test Case Format: The test case formats or templates vary from one organization to another. So you must decide the test case template by concentrating on several key elements. Along with the id, title and summary of the test case, the template can also include required prerequisites, test steps, expected results, actual results, test case status and comments. However, your choice of test case template must be simple and easy to understand.

Often reviewers reject test cases written by software testers because of bad quality. That is why; each tester must understand the important characteristics of a good test case. At the same time, he must plan the test cases by keeping in mind the goals of the software testing project. Test your applications by hiring testing services of an
independent software testing company that fits your budget and time.

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