acceptancekriterier

Acceptance criteria are a set of conditions that a software feature or user story must satisfy to be considered complete by the customer or product owner. They describe the expected behavior, constraints, and quality attributes of the delivered work and serve as the basis for acceptance testing and validation. Acceptance criteria are usually created during backlog refinement and involve collaboration among product owners, developers, testers, and users. They should be clear, testable, unambiguous, and traceable to the underlying requirements. Typical criteria include functional criteria (what the system should do), nonfunctional criteria (performance, security, accessibility, reliability), edge cases, and error conditions. Criteria are often written in observable terms, such as “the user can sign in with valid credentials and receive an authentication token within two seconds,” or “the page loads within three seconds on a standard connection.” They may be designed to be SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Acceptance criteria play a key role in agile development: they accompany user stories, guide development and testing, and form part of the Definition of Done. They provide a basis for accepting or rejecting work and help prevent scope creep by making expectations explicit. Common pitfalls include vague language, conflicting criteria, and criteria that are overly burdensome to test.