Tips for Identifying Test Cases from User Stories

Introduction

As a Quality control professional (QC), you understand the importance of ensuring the best project quality before releasing it to end users. From a User Story, we have many ways to analyze to create different test cases and the content in this article will give some valuable tips to help you do it easier and ensure comprehensive and complete test coverage.

What is a User Story?

A user story is a concise, user-centric description of the person who experiences and uses the software once it is completed. User stories describe a specific feature or requirement desired by the software. Normally, a user story will be written in simple, easy to understand and accessible language.

User stories typically have the format:

• As [user role] (ex: customer, administrator).
• I want [the ability to do something/action], (ex: review or check out products in an available shopping cart).
• So that [I can achieve my interests/goals]. (ex: make sure all selected items are correct).

Why is good analytics and understanding user stories important for QC?

From the perspective of a QC, the person responsible for ensuring product quality, user stories are not just feature descriptions but also resources for QC to use, analyze, clarify, and then design test cases. Well-covered test cases will make an important contribution to ensuring project quality because, after delivering the product to the end user, the product not only works well but also meets the user’s expectations in the best way.

Tips for Identifying Test Cases from User Stories

Tips

1. Break user stories down into testable scenarios
   User stories often have to be analyzed and understood in the clearest way possible. They should be separated into testable scenarios or acceptance criteria. Each scenario, after being executed, will bring value closer to the user’s expectations and limit errors in the best way.
2. Consider positive scenarios and negative scenarios
   Considering happy cases and unhappy cases will help optimize the occurrence of risks from special actions or other negative causes.
   
3. Applying equivalence partitioning techniques and boundary value analysis
   This is one of the important techniques that a QC needs to have, this will help limit unnecessary test cases.
4. Proactively collaborate, exchange and improve test cases
   Communication is very important to understand and clarify information. Collaborate with stakeholders, including testers, product owners, and developers, and embark on the task of reviewing and refining test cases.
5. Prioritize test cases based on risk and impact
   Focus on solving important test cases, scenarios that directly affect the requirements mentioned in the user story and directly handling risks to ensure that the project is ensuring quality in the best way.

Example

     User story: 

• • [As] customer who is registering membership card information at a convenience store.
  • [I want] to register a member card by fill information to the form include:  Name, Phone number, Email, Age, Address.
    • The required field: Name, Phone number, Email.
    • The optional filed: Age, Address.
    • Acceptable Age: 18 – 50.
  • [So that] I can register successful if I meet conditions above.

   Key information to determine:

• User role: Customer
• Action: register a member card by fill information to the form.
• Benefit: Ensure I can register successful if I meet conditions above.

Acceptance Criteria

• The system validates required fields (name, phone number, email).
• The system validates phone number format.
• The system validates email address format.
• The system validates age (if provided) is between 18 and 50.
• Upon successful registration, the system displays a confirmation message and provides member card details.

Test cases example:

• Case 1: Verify that user can register successful with valid information.
• Case 2: Verify the message error when register with missing mandatory filed.
• Case 3:  Verify the message error when register with an age outside the valid range (less than 18).

Conclusion

Through this article and the above example, we can see that user stories are a source for creating effective test cases. The tips outlined in the article above will help you turn user needs into effective executable test scenarios, helping to ensure your testing goals are accurate, successful, and contribute to delivering high quality software that meets user expectations and achieves its intended purpose.

References

• Documents
  • https://testsigma.com
  • https://www.atlassian.com/agile/project-management/user-stories
• Images on Internet