Writing, reviewing, carrying out, or managing them takes up the majority of our time. Unfortunately, tests are also the ones that make mistakes the most. We frequently witness tests that leave a lot to be desired for a variety of reasons, including lack of time, organizational testing policies, and gaps in understanding.
There are a lot of tutorials on our site on this topic, but here will see How NOT to write test cases – a few tips that will help to create distinctive, quality, and effective tests.
Let’s read on and please note that these tips are for both new and experienced testers.
How to Achieve Excellence in Test Case Documentation
Being a software tester, you will surely agree with me that coming up with a perfect Test Document is a challenging task.
In our test case documentation, we constantly leave room for improvement. Sometimes the test template is inadequate, or we fail to give our tests with adequate readability and clarity, and other times we are unable to achieve 100% test coverage through the TCs.
Do not begin writing test documentation haphazardly as a tester anytime you are requested to do so. Before beginning the documentation process, it is crucial to comprehend why test cases are written.
There should always be clarity and lucidity in the tests. They must to be written such that the tester may easily carry out the entire testing process by following the instructions provided in each test.
In addition, the test case document should contain as many cases as required to provide complete test coverage. For Example, try to cover the testing for all the possible scenarios that can occur within your software application.
Keeping the above points in mind, let’s now take a tour about How to Achieve Excellence in Test Documentation.
Useful Tricks for Excellence
Here, we will explore some useful guidelines that can give you a leg up in your test documentation from the others.
#1) Is your Test Document in Good Shape?
Dividing your test document into several, practical sections is the most effective and straightforward method of organization. Split up all of the testing into several test scenarios. Next, separate each scenario into several tests. Lastly, break each instance up into several test phases.
If you are using Excel, then document each test case on a separate sheet of the workbook wherein each test case describes one complete test flow.
#2) Do not Forget to Cover the Negative Cases
As a software tester, you must be creative and consider every scenario that your program might encounter. As testers, it is our responsibility to confirm that any unauthorized attempts to access the program or improper data transfer should be prevented and reported.
A negative case is therefore just as significant as a good one. Make sure you have a positive and a negative test case for every circumstance. The unplanned or exceptional flow should be covered by the negative one, while the intended or usual flow should be covered by the positive one.
#3) Have Atomic Test Steps
Every test step ought to be atomic. No more sub-steps should be required. Testing will go more smoothly if a test step is straightforward and easy to understand.
#4) Prioritize the Tests
We often have stringent timelines to finish testing for an application. Here, we may miss testing some of the important functionalities and aspects of the software. To avoid this, tag a priority with each test while documenting it.
Any encoding can be used to specify a test’s priority. Any of the three levels—high, medium, and low—or 1, 50, and 100 are preferable. Therefore, finish all of the high-priority tests first, followed by the medium and low-priority tests, when you have a tight deadline.
For Example, for a shopping website, verifying access denial for an invalid attempt to log into the app can be a high-priority case, verifying the display of relevant products on the user screen can be a medium-priority case, and verifying the color of the text displayed on the screen buttons can be a low priority test.
#5) Sequence Matters
Confirm whether the sequence of steps in the test is correct. A wrong sequence of steps can lead to confusion.
Preferably, the steps should also define the entire sequence from entering the app until exiting the app for a particular scenario that is being tested.
#6) Add Timestamp and Tester’s Name to the Comments
While you are testing an application, there may be instances where someone is updating the app after your testing is complete or making changes to the same app concurrently. Your test findings may change over time as a result of this.
So, it is always better to add a timestamp with the tester’s name in the testing comments so that a test result (pass or fail) can be attributed to the state of an application at that particular time. Alternatively, you can have an ‘Executed Date’ column added separately to the test case, and this will explicitly identify the timestamp of the test.
#7) Include Browser Details
As you are aware, depending on the browser used to run the test, the results may vary if it is a web application.
The browser name and version should be added to the case for the convenience of other testers, developers, or whoever is examining the test document. This will make it easier to reproduce the error.
#8) Keep Two Separate Sheets – ‘Bugs’ & ‘Summary’ in the Document
If you are documenting in Excel, then the first two sheets of the workbook should be Summary and Bugs. The Summary sheet should summarize the test scenario and the Bugs sheet should list all the issues encountered during testing.
The significance of adding these two sheets is that it will give a clear understanding of the testing to the reader/user of the document. So, when time is restricted, these two sheets can prove very useful in providing an overview of testing.
The test document should provide the best possible test coverage, and excellent readability and should follow one standard format throughout.
Just by following a few key guidelines, such as organizing test case documents, prioritizing TCs, making sure everything is in the right order, including all necessary information to carry out a TC, and providing clear and understandable test steps, among other things, we can achieve excellence in test documentation.
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