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software engineering

How To Write A Great Test Case

Overview

A test case is exactly what it sounds like: a test scenario measuring functionality across a set of actions or conditions to verify the expected result. They apply to any software application, can use manual testing or an automated test, and can make use of test case management tools.

Most digital-first business leaders know the value of software testing. Some value high-quality software more than others and might demand more test coverage to ultimately satisfy customers. So, how do they achieve that goal?

They test more, and test more efficiently. That means writing test cases that cover a broad spectrum of software functionality. It also means writing test cases clearly and efficiently, as a poor test can prove more damaging than helpful.

A key thing to remember when it comes to writing test cases is that they are intended to test a basic variable or task such as whether or not a discount code applies to the right product on an e-commerce web page. This allows a software tester more flexibility in how to test code and features.

In Nathan Barrett’s Lightning Talk session, we will be breaking down the following topics:

  • What Is A Test Case?
  • What Makes A Good Test Case?
  • Live Demonstration
  • Closing Thoughts

What Is A Test Case?

At a high level, to “test” means to establish the quality, performance, or reliability of a software application. A test case is a repeatable series of specific actions designed to either verify success or provoke failure in a given product, system, or process. 

A test case gives detailed information about testing strategy, testing process, preconditions, and expected output. These are executed during the testing process to check whether the software application is performing the task for which it was developed for or not. A passed test case functions like a receipt verifying the correct functionality of the subject of the test. 

To write the test case, we must have the requirements to derive the inputs, and the test scenarios must be written so that we do not miss out on any features for testing. Then we should have the test case template to maintain the uniformity, or every test engineer follows the same approach to prepare the test document.

Test cases serve as final verification of functionality before releasing it to the direct product users. 

What Makes A Good Test Case?

Writing test cases varies depending on what the test case is measuring or testing. This is also a situation where sharing test assets across dev and test teams can accelerate software testing. But it all starts with knowing how to write a test case effectively and efficiently.

Test cases have a few integral parts that should always be present in fields, as well as some “nice to have” elements that can only work to enhance presented results. 

Required Elements:

  • Summary
    • Concise, direct encapsulation of the purpose of the test case 
  • Prerequisites
    • What needs to be in place prior to starting the test?
    • Bad Prerequisites: captured in test steps, not present, overly specific
    • Good Prerequisites: concise/descriptive, lays out all set-up prior to testing, includes information to learn more if desired 
  • Test Steps
    • The meat of the test case
    • Good test steps: each step is a specific atomic action performed by the user that contains an expected result, call out divergent paths where necessary, cites which test data when laid out in prerequisites needs to be applied
    • Really great test steps should treat the user like they know “nothing” and communicate everything from start to finish
  • Expected Results
    • How do we know that the test hasn’t failed?
    • Bad Expected Results: Page loads correctly, view looks good, app behaves as expected
    • Good Expected Results: Landing page loads after spinner with user’s account details present, view renders with all appropriate configurations (title, subtitle, description, etc.), toggle changes state when tapped (enabled→disabled)

Preferred Additional Elements:

  • Artifacts
    • Screenshots, files, builds, configurations, etc.
  • Test Data
    • Accounts, items, addresses, etc.
    • What information is needed during the test?
    • Pre-rendered prerequisite fulfillment
  • Historical Context
    • Previous failures, previous user journeys, development history, etc.
    • Has this feature been “flakey” in the past?
    • What are previous failure points?
    • How critical is this feature?

The very practice of writing test cases helps prepare the testing team by ensuring good test coverage across the application, but writing test cases has an even broader impact on quality assurance and user experience.

Live Demonstration

Nathan Barrett has crafted an intuitive test of specificity to help guide testers to understand how they should be structuring their cases:

Be sure to follow Nathan’s entire Lightning Talk to follow along with these steps in real time.

Closing Thoughts

Test cases help guide the tester through a sequence of steps to validate whether a software application is free of bugs, and working as required by the end-user. A well-written test case should allow any tester to understand and execute the test.

All programs should always be designed with performance and the user experience in mind. The properties explored above are the primary stepping stones to understanding the beneficial prerequisites to writing a good test case for any type of application. Be sure to explore, have fun, and match up the components that work best for your project!

Happy coding!

To learn more about How To Conduct A Great Test Case as well as its importance in the software development process and to experience Nathan Barrett’s full Lightning Talk session, watch here. 

Our Greatest Investment Opportunity


InRhythm’s success is built on the excellence of every employee, and the outstanding work they do every day continues to drive us to greater heights. While we look to hire the very best consultants at the outset, every employee is on their own career journey, and one of the cornerstones of our company culture is investing in the careers and lives of our people to help them be happier, healthier, and more proficient in their fields. Investing in this development has, for me, provided an enormous return in the form of profitability, productivity, and the overall wellness of our employees.

Personal Zen

InRhythmers already enjoy a company reimbursement for the music streaming service of their choice; music is a core part of the day for many of us, and it just made sense to keep everyone happy with their favorite personal playlists, unburdened by ads. Not everyone listens to music when they work, however, so this year we’re expanding the program to include audiobook services like Audible and wellness and meditation apps like Headspace, so each of our employees can define their own idea of work zen with our enthusiastic support.

Empowering our employees to find their focus and de-stress increases confidence and performance. Meditation, in particular, offers a number of benefits, including increased immune function and lowered anxiety, that pay huge dividends in and out of the office. We can’t always predict the future in this fast-moving industry, and no consultancy is immune from stressful days, but by giving InRhythmers the tools they need to stay grounded and happy, they can tackle the biggest problems and opportunities ahead of us.

A Better Future

We hire engineers and designers at all skill levels to work on some of the biggest industry-shaping projects, but each and every one of our consultants is ambitious and dedicated to growing their expertise. Our culture of learning and growth is designed to take every InRhythmer to the next level, whatever that might look like for them. InRhythmU, our suite of internal and client-facing training and development workshops, speaker series, and resources is a comprehensive platform for our people to learn from (and teach!) each other, sharing their mastery of everything from cutting-edge programming languages to soft skills like leadership, personal branding, and public speaking.

We also provide a coaching program that pairs our senior-level consultants with several mentees, each with their own specific goals for the year. Our coaches work individually with their mentees and consult with other coaches on guiding every InRhythmer toward goals they’ve self-identified. The result? Our people are working on everything from personal financial literacy to Chrome extension development, with our coaches and the entire culture of InRhythm as the wind at their back.

When you hire for the very best, you’ll find yourself surrounded by people who are naturally ambitious and hungry to learn. In practice, however, I see a huge deficit in the education provided by a lot of companies in our industry; while it’s fine for your employees to seek learning elsewhere, it’s also a huge missed opportunity to engage with your people and personally invest in their success. By providing these resources on-site at InRhythm headquarters and empowering our people to not only come to us to learn but also to teach each other, a richer culture is born.

P.S. We also encourage our speakers to open up their learning and growth events, where appropriate, to the general public. Whether you’re a current InRhythmer, looking to join the team, or just interested in the field, I encourage you to join our InRhythmU Meetup group to get the latest updates and RSVP info for upcoming events:

Design Sprints with Joe Cahill
April 24th | 5 pm | RSVP

Compassionate Coding with Brian Olore
May 16th | 5 pm | RSVP

GraphQL with Denny Temple
June 20th | 5 pm | RSVP

Advanced Design Patterns with Will Bratches
July 18th | 5 pm | RSVP

React Native with James Woods
August 15th | 5 pm | RSVP

We’ve got a lot of different events, owing to the wide-ranging interests of our consultants, so if there’s something that interests you, I look forward to seeing you at an InRhythmU event soon.

Thanks and Keep Growing,
Gunjan

How to Be a Better Engineer ?: InRhythm’s Learning and Growth Newsletter

 

February 11th: How to Be a Better Engineer

InRhythm’s mission, in the work we do and the people we hire, is acutely focused on learning and growth. Through the development of InRhythmU, our internal professional growth initiative, we’re developing programs to ensure that our engineers reach the level of technical ability required by our clients. Being a great engineer involves more than keeping up with tech trends or mastering a framework, however.

We want to create bar-raisers who take our client relationships to the next level. The real goal is to train engineers who can approach engineering problems strategically and make good choices in a world of infinite options. As we develop this system of skill building and growth, a few key questions emerge. How do junior engineers learn to become senior engineers? How much technical ability should a UI designer aim for? Should every member of the team understand user experience design? Database design? What does “full-stack engineer” really mean? And what’s our role in building the next generation of software?

This month we dive into these issues, led by senior InRhythm engineer Brian Olore, whose article “Becoming a Senior Engineer” clearly lays out some tips, tricks, and time-tested strategies that will help you raise that bar.

Tell us what you think separates good engineers from great ones—or shout out any great engineers you know (we’re hiring!)—@GetInRhythm or here on the InRhythmU blog.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi
CEO, InRhythm

Becoming a Senior Engineer
(4 min. read)
“Looking to take your engineering career to the next level? These five tips will set you on the path to greater things and make you a standout in the field. As we all know, it’s not easy to be exceptional in this already-competitive field, but the reward for real leadership is high, and if you’re truly passionate about your craft, these tips—including mentorship and open source contributions—will be something to get excited about.”

What We’re Reading Around the Web

The Great Divide
(14 min. read)
CSS-Tricks
“In this provocative article, Chris Coyer lays out why he thinks there’s a rift growing in the development community. The fault line? JavaScript. On one side are those who believe a ‘front-end engineer’ must be skilled with the language, while the other side feels ‘cosmically far away from the articles and conversations around accessibility, semantic markup, CSS possibilities, UX considerations, and UI polish, among others.’ Coyer quips: ‘Two front-end developers are sitting at a bar. They have nothing to talk about.’ False dichotomy? Industry impasse? You decide.”

Designing for the Web Ought to Mean Making HTML and CSS
(4 min. read)
Signal V. Noise
“Et tu, JavaScript? ‘The industry is making it too hard to work directly with the web’ says Ruby On Rails creator, best-selling author, and racecar driver(!) David Heinemeier Hansson. Never one to shy away from controversy, DHH (as he is known) calls out the industry’for polluting our thinking with over-engineered frameworks and toolkits while ignoring the raw value of “native” web technologies like HTML and CSS (and JavaScript) and the opinions of designers who work with them: ‘The towering demands inherent in certain ways of working with JavaScript are rightfully scaring some designers off from implementing their ideas at all. That’s a travesty.’ Is the soft bigotry of low expectations degrading the quality of our teams? Is knowledge of JavaScript non-negotiable for ‘front-end engineers’?”

HTML, CSS and Our Vanishing Industry Entry Points
(6 min. read)
Rachel Andrew
“It ain’t easy bein’ green. The leadership team at InRhythm spends a great deal of time improving the way we attract, train, and retain talent. Many of our hires are relatively new to this industry; Rachel Andrew has been thinking about what those new entries into this field face, worried that we’re excluding many people unnecessarily, especially those without formal training. What about those who learn ‘on the job,’ view source and copy, or futz around with a GitHub repo and learn on their own? Aren’t ambitious people to be valued? Didn’t the web grow so rapidly and profitably specifically because barriers to entry didn’t exist? ‘If we make it so that you have to understand programming to even start, then we take something open and enabling, and place it back in the hands of those who are already privileged.’ There may be implications here for society, and freedom; Andrew’s larger point is worth considering.”

What Happened to the Internet?
(11 min. read)
thinkgrowth.org
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers. We’ve been told that technology companies value those who ‘Think Different.’ Is that still true on the Internet? Jared Sumner reminds us of a time when the web was ‘weird and fun,’ and we liked it! Is coding now a privilege, instead of a right? Wasn’t this technology supposed to be a great equalizer, rather than an opportunity to be monopolized by tech giants? Following this line of thinking and going deeper, Meghan Keaney Anderson asks us whether ‘what was once the closest thing we could imagine to a meritocracy more closely resembles an oligarchy ruled by a few powerful gatekeepers.’ Food for thought.”

Featured Tech Talk – Andy Philbert Jr. – Javascript Recruiter Extraordinaire

 

Listen to Andy Philbert Jr. – Head Javascript Recruiter of InRhythm, deliver an insightful talk on what his kind look for when interviewing and hiring.

From Andy:
“Recruiters are usually the first people you speak to when interviewing with companies. We are not engineers and screen for non technical qualities that shows that you would be someone amazing to work with and have the potential to be or already are a great engineer. This talk discusses the recruiter’s role within the interview process and how to market yourself as a great engineer without having to rely on just showing your code.”

Session: IR Lightning Talks 1 – Aug 24, 2017, IR HQ

 

Engineering Driven Culture – InRhythm’s Code Lounge

 

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Last week, driven by the feedback from our engineering leadership team, we held InRhythm U’s first-ever Code Lounge, inviting everyone from across the company and a few external guests to learn new skills, brush up on existing ones, or just get help on a personal project.

Code Lounge featured technical “stations” for Angular, React, React Native, Express, Vue, Node.js, Java, QA, UX and Product, each led by an InRhythm senior developer instructor. Accompanied by food and drinks on the company, the event provided an easy atmosphere and low-key way for everyone to network and learn a thing or two!

Here are a few key takeaways and learnings from Code Lounge:

  1. To understand what is important to our engineers, we need to be constantly listening to and engaging with our teams. While Vue and Java were not on our list of station offerings originally, in putting the event together we quickly found out that they are in high demand. Luckily, we were able to add both of these to our agenda, thanks to our very talented engineers who were able to lead these discussions.
  2. Collaboration happens when culture is driven from bottom up, not top down. Our engineers and UX/product leads single-handedly drove Code Lounge, with management simply enabling from the background with budget and logistics support. The magic of the night was the true collaboration seen across the stations, individuals coming prepared with best practices in their domains to share without being asked, and amazing learning and teaching happening in tandem across the room.
  3. Angular seemed to be the least popular station at the event, perhaps because a large part of our team is already fluent in Angular or perhaps due to newer technologies featured, such as Vue and React – these were the most popular and buzzed-about tables.
  4. We love learning and development at InRhythm, but admittedly beer on tap, Lombardi’s pizza, pool and music make it even better.

At InRhythm, our goal is to give our people the best opportunities for learning and growth. This goal is something I feel very passionate about as do all our senior leaders across the organization. Code Lounge is just one example of how we keep our company culture and ourselves at the top of our game!  If you want to find out more, visit us at www.inrhythm.com.