What Is A Test Case To Me?

Matt Heusser from Creative Chaos asked me via Twitter today to write a post about what a test case is to me.

We each have our own style of verifying the information, functionality, navigation, and end result of the applications that we work on. However, between the styles comes some rigidity whether you’re SCRUMming or diving off a Waterfall. We base our cases off successful, failed, unexpected,  forced input and result sets. We write our tests to be performed by humans or as subroutines on machines.

What is a test case to me?

Simple Statement

A process that should return an expected set of results when performed.

Personal Statement

Testing and the test cases written aren’t just a simple series of steps. Whether the tests are automated or manual, someone created them. Someone with the knowledge of what the data should look like on the inside and what the user wants on the outside. Someone who can look at a sign in button and not see just two tests, but dozens.

Tests are the embodiment of the creativity, technical, hacker, cracker, UX designer, developer, and product manager parts in all of us. We don’t want a product to break but we silently cheer when we find a bug. We don’t cheer because the developer screwed up; we cheer because that’s one less frustration the user has to go through to use the application and by consequence helps us keep our job.

I am a Tester. A test case is me.