depth and breadth of software test documents _ Documents

Overview

The software test document is the software test work product which is output in the test process, similar to the software work product. In practice, however, there are countless software test documents that need to be written, and the effect of using documents is very limited. This paper expounds some factors that need to be considered in the depth and breadth selection of software test documents.

Body

The test document is the test work product which the tester outputs in the test process, is similar to the software work product, is the formal test process important constituent. IEEE829 is the most famous document standard in the software testing industry, which provides a good description of the software test document and describes the relationship between the software test documents and the test process.

Many companies in the industry use IEEE829 Test document standards, or to IEEE829 based on the development of their company's document template, but the actual results are not optimistic, mainly in:

1 High cost: Testers need to spend a lot of time to write test documents, fill in similar format of desk work according to the template;

2 Poor results: According to the test document template is not particularly valuable to write a large number of raw materials, even due to time constraints, testing documents almost in the process of testing no one to see;

3 The high cost of document maintenance: Especially in the test document input software work product changes, not only to modify the bundle to the software change part, but also to search for other related content that must be modified.

Therefore, simply copying the IEEE829 test document template, or a document template developed in-house, is not intended to provide a test document. To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of test document templates, testers need to consider what the test documentation needs to address, and what its primary purpose is. If you want to write a good test document, need to have a test document template support, but more importantly, testers need to understand what the template does not part of the meaning, why need to have this part, when you can delete this part of the content, that is, testers must be able to according to the company characteristics and project characteristics of the test document template.

Decide what content is included in the test document and what is not, should be based on the project requirements. In order to better determine the depth and breadth of the test document template, that is, to properly tailor the test document template, testers should at least consider the following factors:

1) Test target

What is the goal of the tester to test the product or system? If the test document does not support this goal, or does not help achieve this goal, then the value of such a test document (as with all other software work products created) will be much lower.

2 test whether the document is a product or a tool

If the test document is part of a software system or a product, then these documents need to be published to the customer, and the test document needs to follow a certain form of the customer's request. And if the test document is just a tool for internal use, then there is no need to be too complete, too neat, to help achieve the goal at a minimum.

3 Software design changes are frequent

If software design changes are frequent, do not write many details to the test document, as these details will soon become obsolete. In this case, do not write a large number of test documents, they are modified or abandoned too fast, do not deserve to put too much effort on the test document.

4) The test method used

If the current software development model is a linear model such as the V model, then the test method used is usually dependent on a predefined test, which requires detailed test case operation and maintenance documentation. If you're using exploratory testing, you'll need more policy-related documentation, such as the idea of a test area, but not a specific test case.

5 test document to WHO to see

If the test documents are primarily for new testers or inexperienced testers, then they need to be detailed enough to enable them to work properly.

When testers crop a test document, the above questions can help testers think, write down what they need, and how detailed the content is to reach the goal of testing the document.

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