Test Design Techniques – Chapter 4 – ISTQB Foundation
ISTQB certification foundation level exam should not be hard. This is the fourth part of a series of a summary to help you in memorize what is most likely be on the ISTQB exam questions.
Read, then practice the exam for the chapter 4 – Test Design Techniques, link at the end of this summary, practice the quiz as much as you like or until you feel comfortable enough to go to the next chapter.
If you feel that you are ok to try the actual exam, there’s a quiz for that as well next to the chapter five.
More you read, more you understand, more you understand more you are ready to sit at the exam.
I have uploaded a mind map with a graphical visualization of the ISTQB Foundation Level topics, a kind of Cheat Cheat, you may find it useful too to help you with the exam.
Hope you like. Feel free to drop me a comment, or inform anything that I’ve missed here. Good luck.
Test condition
An item or event of a component or system that could be verified by one or more test cases
Test case
A set of input values, execution preconditions, expected results, and execution post conditions, such as to exercise a part of the code
Test procedure specification
A sequence of actions for the execution of a test
Reasons to know test coverage
- Provide a quantitative measure of the quality of testing that has been done
- Provides a way of estimating how much more testing is needed
Three categories of test case design techniques
- Black box techniques
- White box techniques
- Experience based techniques
Specification based techniques
Black box testing – test cases derived directly from a specification or a model of a system or proposed system (documentation)
5 types of specification based techniques
- Equivalence partitioning
- Boundary value analysis
- Decision table testing
- State transition testing
- Use case testing
Equivalence partitioning
Reduces the number of tests needed by considering partitions are the only test cases needed
Boundary value analysis
Looks for tests that focus on the possible boundaries of inputs, noting that most errors occur there
Decision table testing
Uses a table to list out all possible inputs and actions that can arise to ensure each are tested
State transition testing
Uses a state diagram to list out all of the possible states and transitions that can occur to ensure each are tested
Use case testing
Capturing individual interactions between actors and the system to help test specific scenarios that are likely to be performed
Structure-based techniques
White box techniques – used to explore the system or component structures
Statement testing
Testing aimed at exercising programming statements
Decision testing
Testing aimed to ensure that the decisions in a program are adequately exercised
Experience based techniques
Techniques that you fall back on when there is no adequate specification or no time to run the full set of tests
Error guessing
Uses tester’s skill, intuition, and experience to identify special tests not easily captured otherwise
Exploratory testing
Combines experience of testing with a structured approach to testing where specifications are missing or inadequate and there is time pressure
