What is a Test Case

In simple terms, test cases are how the testers validate that software meets customer requirements. It’s a tool which helps testers to test a product.

Test case is a set of conditions organized in a manner which determines a requirement is met in the product by testers. Then testers can decide whether the test is passed or failed based on the output of the test case. If the output is passed the conclusion is that the tested requirement is functioning correctly. If test case failed then that requirement needs a code change to fix the issue. When a test case is failed, testers called it as bug/issue* of the system.

The main inputs for test cases are requirements of the system. This can in format of a requirement document which represents using deferent techniques such as use cases. Then it’s testers’ responsibility to design test cases to cover all requirements. There are tests to cover the positive test and the negative test for a requirement as the minimum.

There are several information required for a complete test case and those are,

Test case ID – to identify a test case, it should have a unique number.

Test case description – This includes the description of the feature or the requirement that’s going to test by this test case.

Steps – steps should be included to guide the tester to execute the desired test case

Input data – If the test case requires the specific data, those can be included here. When designing the test case, it’s acceptable to include the test data among the steps.

Reference – this will link the test case to the requirement which has documented in requirement document.

Expected result – this the expected output of the test case and how the feature/requirement should function in the product.

Testing status– this will contain information whether the test case is passed or failed after execution of the test.

Author – This will contain information who has designed the test cases.

Date – this will hold the information when the test cases are designed.

Change history- this will give an idea what has been changing in the test cases after creation of it.

Author, Date and change history can be single entry for a set of test cases.

*Bug/Issue will be discussed in detail in another post.