'Un-scripted' (or pre-prepped) testing

[Paul French]

I know some people are very particular about terms used so very interested in getting some clarification on what people generally use to refer to the different types of ‘non-scripted’ testing.

Exploratory testing tends to get used a lot but I know some people refer to this specifically when you are learning about the application as you are testing (and so there is a presumption of limited knowledge of the system under test).

Ad-hoc testing is not a term many like using as it sounds slack and not particularly well-structured etc.

Experience based testing – May refer specifically when you are using previous experience to drive the testing so again could be perceived as something a little different (e.g. using people with particular experience in particular types of applications or business scenarios etc).

Session based testing – appears to be the best term at the moment

Interested in thoughts from others, or pointers to any good (non-Bach) web articles on this.

An example or 2 of where I have used non-scripted approach are:
– When applying a risk-based approach to testing (or augmenting other testing with some RBT) – e.g. someone in the business telling you what they feel are the things or scenarios that would concern them about the system once it goes live
– Where requirements or functionality is relatively free-form – where you can have some fundamental tests to check the functionality but you want the testers to think on their feet and try and break it

[Ronan Healy]

I’m not sure if this was mentioned here but the thread on taxonomy of Software Testing Terms might be worth a look.

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