Scenario testing is a
software testing
Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to apprecia ...
activity that uses
scenarios
In the performing arts, a scenario (, ; ; ) is a synoptical collage of an event or series of actions and events. In the ''commedia dell'arte'', it was an outline of entrances, exits, and action describing the plot of a play, and was literally pi ...
: hypothetical stories to help the tester work through a complex problem or test system. The ideal scenario test is a credible, complex, compelling or motivating story; the outcome of which is easy to evaluate.
These tests are usually different from
test case
In software engineering, a test case is a specification of the inputs, execution conditions, testing procedure, and expected results that define a single test to be executed to achieve a particular software testing objective, such as to exercise ...
s in that test cases are single steps whereas scenarios cover a number of steps.
History
Cem Kaner
Cem Kaner is a professor of software engineering at Florida Institute of Technology, and the Director of Florida Tech's Center for Software Testing Education & Research (CSTER) since 2004. He is perhaps best known outside academia as an advocate ...
coined the phrase scenario test by October 2003.
He commented that one of the most difficult aspects of testing was maintaining step-by-step test cases along with their expected results. His paper attempted to find a way to reduce the re-work of complicated written tests and incorporate the ease of
use case
In software and systems engineering, the phrase use case is a polyseme with two senses:
# A usage scenario for a piece of software; often used in the plural to suggest situations where a piece of software may be useful.
# A potential scenario ...
s.
A few months later, Hans Buwalda wrote about a similar approach he had been using that he called "soap opera testing". Like television soap operas these tests were both exaggerated in activity and condensed in time.
The key to both approaches was to avoid step-by-step testing instructions with expected results and instead replaced them with a narrative that gave freedom to the tester while confining the scope of the test.
Methods
System scenarios
In this method only those sets of realistic, user activities that cover several components in the system are used as scenario tests. Development of system scenario can be done using:
#
Story lines
#
State transitions
#
Business vertical
In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration is a term that describes the arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the supply ...
s
# Implementation story from customers
Use-case and role-based scenarios
In this method the focus is on how a user uses the system with different roles and environment.
See also
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Test script
A test script in software testing is a set of instructions that will be performed on the system under test to test that the system functions as expected.
Types of test scripts
There are various means for executing test scripts. These last two ...
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Test suite
In software development, a test suite, less commonly known as a validation suite, is a collection of test cases that are intended to be used to test a software program to show that it has some specified set of behaviors. A test suite often contai ...
*
Session-based testing Session-based testing is a software test method that aims to combine accountability and exploratory testing to provide rapid defect discovery, creative on-the-fly test design, management control and metrics reporting. The method can also be used i ...
References
{{Authority control
Software testing