End-user accpetance testing/test plan

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alex.barylski
DevNet Evangelist
Posts: 6267
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: Winnipeg

End-user accpetance testing/test plan

Post by alex.barylski »

My manager wants me to produce a document to assist her and other stakeholders in validating the system does what it is supposed to do, from a user perspective.

Basically a step by step document for thouroughly testing each module/component of the system, from an end-user perspective, validating messages, workflow, etc.

My questions:

1. Are there any tools to assist users in automating this process somewhat? Maybe an events recorder in FireFox like iMacros? Visual validation is still required, so atuomation is impossible(unpractical). Making sure windows are the correct size, drag and drop works, etc.

2. I test thouroughly at this level as well, just as part of my development process and one issue I have is easily testing the various user level restrictions/constraints/etc. I have a engineer user, an inspector user and super admin user, each with different access rights.

3. Any examples of what a test plan of this type might look like would probalby be helpful for me. Currently I have a simple notepad document indicating the steps and expected results of carrying out an action, such as adding a repair document

I currently expedite the process by having three browsers open (IE: I login as engineer user, FF: I login as inspector user, OP: I login as super admin user).

IE is our intranet browser of choice, so I wonder if there is a way to open distinct tabs with individual session cookies???

Somethinglike this:

http://www.klariti.com/templates/Accept ... late.shtml
http://www.contractedwork.com/pport/p12939/UATTEMPL.DOC

A template which I can follow in building our own internal user acceptance test plan.

Most important is an easy to follow sequence of steps which end-users can follow to ensure the system acts as expected.

Cheers,
Alex
Last edited by alex.barylski on Thu Mar 25, 2010 8:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
alex.barylski
DevNet Evangelist
Posts: 6267
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: Winnipeg

Re: End-user accpetance testing/test plan

Post by alex.barylski »

I found several templates like this: http://www.uservices.umn.edu/pmo/docs/T ... T_Plan.doc

However none seem to give an example as to the steps an end-user would carry out to test a system. I realize every application will have unique steps, but I still feel as though some common data gathering requirements would be possible?

1. Description of the sequence or step.
2. Pre and post conditions
3. Data entry

Part of the problem I am struggling with, is also how to organize each sequence. Obviously something as detailed as:

- Click on button labeled 'New Task'
- After dialog becomes visible, enter following detail

The second sequence, is obviously a sub-step so nesting would make sense. I would like to see several examples to get a better feel as to how much detail is good enough for me, excessive, minimal, etc.

Cheers,
Alex
josh
DevNet Master
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Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2004 3:23 pm
Location: Palm beach, Florida

Re: End-user accpetance testing/test plan

Post by josh »

PCSpectra wrote:1. Are there any tools to assist users in automating this process somewhat? Maybe an events recorder in FireFox like iMacros? Visual validation is still required, so atuomation is impossible(unpractical). Making sure windows are the correct size, drag and drop works, etc.
I only skimmed your post, but selenium runs in firefox and CAN automate the stuff you think is impossible (it is not impossible at all...)

Also, if you can de-couple your user interface from the "logic" of your javascript, you can usually get all the logic under test and test with a browser-less tool.

Ex. - http://joshribakoff.com/?p=190
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