Erik van Veeneddaal

Improve IT Services

Test techniques have been around for many years. They are used explicitly or implicitly by most testers. There are many sources of information with respect to test techniques, their methods and coverage measures. It is not the intention of this e-book to completely repeat or re-iterate such information. This e-book intents to provide a to-the-point overview of the most popular test techniques.

This overview will support the test technique selection process when determining a test strategy or test approach. It also looks at a number of reasons why we should consider the use of test techniques as a part of our everyday test activities and who should be looking to use them.

Specification-based test techniques have a more-or-less standard procedure for deriving test cases from requirements documents. For each specification-based technique described, a list of characteristics is provided and the level of (requirements) coverage that can be achieved is discussed.

Experience-based testing, e.g., exploratory testing, is a powerful approach to testing. In many situations, it has shown to be very productive. There isn’t a tester yet who didn’t, at least unconsciously, perform experience-based testing at one time or another. The three most popular experience-based techniques are described in this e-book

Key Takeaways:

• Explain the most popular specification-based and experience-based test techniques
• Understand the key characteristics for the various test techniques
• Recall the procedure for deriving test cases using a specification-based technique
• Compare specification-based techniques to experience-based techniques
• Recommend the most appropriate test techniques in a specific situation.