Test design

contributed by: Helena Jeret-Mäe, Joep Schuurkes

Briefing

When you have a high-level idea about what to test - like for instance from the tours in the Modeling exercise - it’s time to think about what and how exactly you are going to test. That thinking is called test design. Put differently, you have an idea about something you want to find out. Test design is coming up with and designing experiments that will help you to find that something out.

There are many approaches and techniques to test design. For this exercise we will use a part of the testObsessed’s​ Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet​, more specifically the Data Type Attacks section.

Exercise

  1. Review the results of your Data Tour (see the Modeling exercise) and identify 2 or 3 areas you would like to focus your testing on.
  2. Use the Data Type Attacks section in the Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet​​ to test the selected areas in Google Calendar. Time limit 20 minutes.

Evaluation

  1. How did the cheat sheet help you in elaborating your test idea(s) in more detail?
  2. How did the cheat sheet help you create different tests? Which tests seemed to yield more interesting results than others? Why do you think that is the case?
  3. Considering the modeling and the test design exercise, in what ways were the two exercises the same? In what way were they different?

Sources