Test Taxonomy Decoder Ring

Just like people in most other disciplines, testers often throw around terminology that other people might not understand. "Those bloody devs". <g/> Here's a decoder ring for some of those terms.

• BVT, or Build Verification Test. Also knows as a smoke test. A short, fast, and simple test meant to determine whether a daily build is so broken that it's not worth even installing, let alone testing.
• FVT, or Feature Verification Test. A BVT for a specific feature, meant to determine whether that feature is worth testing.
• Exit Scenario. Tests which must pass in order for the team to exit the current milestone. This set of tests will include customer-focused end-to-end scenarios. It may also include more narrowly scoped feature-centric tests.
• Basic Functionality. Also known as comprehensive tests. Any test that isn't a BVT, FVT, or Exit Scenario.
• Dailies, or Nightlies. The set of tests that is run on every daily (or nightly) build. Typically this will include at least BVTs and FVTs; often it includes exit scenarios as well.
• Positive Test. A test that covers expected use cases. Depending on your point of view, this class of tests might include common error paths.
• Negative. A test that covers unexpected use cases, such as entering crazy long text strings in a text box or attempting to use disabled functionality. Most error conditions are generally included here as well.
• User Scenario. A test case that reproduces a sequence of actions you expect your customer to take. User scenarios can be as narrow as "Select some text and make it bold", but they are typically more broad.
• Black Box. Testing based solely on what can be observed of an application's behavior.
• White Box. Testing based on knowledge of an application's implementation. Code inspections and code coverage analysis are two examples of white box testing.
• Grey Box. A mix of White Box and Black Box testing, where some knowledge of the application's implementation is used to guide observation-based testing.

Are there other terms you would like decoded? Let me know!

Posted by The Braidy Tester at 07:30 AM  Permalink