Testdesign

Testdesign is the process of deriving and documenting test cases and the associated test data to validate a system against its requirements. It follows the analysis of requirements and risk assessment and serves as the bridge between requirements and test execution. The goal is to create tests that are effective at uncovering defects while being efficient to execute and maintain. Good test design aims for traceability, ensuring that every requirement or risk item has corresponding test cases, and that each test case has a clearly defined purpose and expected result.

Common techniques include equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis, and decision table testing, which help reduce the number of test cases while preserving fault-detection ability. Pairwise or combinatorial testing can increase coverage with a smaller set of tests. State transition testing applies to systems with distinct states and transitions. For non-functional aspects, design often involves performance scenarios, reliability models, and usability considerations, with techniques such as workload modeling and resource-bound testing.

Design artifacts typically include a test design specification or a set of test cases with input data, expected results, preconditions, and postconditions. Traceability matrices link each test case to requirements or risk items. The test design process is iterative and collaborative, involving testers, developers, and product owners, and is often integrated with risk-based prioritization and test-coverage reviews to guide what to test, when to test, and how much testing is sufficient.