Test-Case Quality – Understanding Practitioners’ Perspectives

Tran, Huynh Khanh Vi; Ali, Nauman bin; Börstler, Jürgen; Unterkalmsteiner, Michael

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-35333-9_3

Cited by 9 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Such as the high probability of detecting defects, organizational resources being used more efficiently, the chance of test reuse being increased, closer adherence to testing and project schedules and budgets, and increasing the quality of software products. TCQ is very important for assuring the quality of software-intensive products [31], [55]. TCQ refers to the suitability of a TC to check the system quality, which is difficult to analyze [56].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, in [31], Tran et al studied TCQ from Sweden's professional developers' and testers' perspectives. They identified 11 characteristics for the quality of manual TCs.…”

Section: A Test Case Quality Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Numerous studies have been consistently conducted to address the challenges associated with TCQ [15], [21], [24], [31], [48]- [50]. Despite the extensive efforts invested in testing, including significant time and resources, the persistence of prevalent issues, such as the proliferation of flawed TCs continues to impact the cost and duration of software projects [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Verifying Agile Black-Box Test Case Quality Measurements: Expert Review

Barraood,

Mohd,

Baharom

et al. 2023

IEEE Access

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Tests on software are performed to ensure it has no defects. Software testing companies and organizations claimed that the testing problem increased their time and budget for testing by over 50%. As a result, the product's release is delayed, which attracts customer complaints. Testing involves test cases, which are a vital part of the process. Therefore, quality test cases likely to identify defects and meet users' requirements must be chosen. This paper aims to identify and verify the characteristics, sub-characteristics, and metrics that construct the proposed model for producing high-quality black-box test cases in an Agile Software Development environment. An expert review approach was used to verify the proposed model. Ten academic and six industry experts contributed to this verification. The results showed that six characteristics, 22 sub-characteristics, and 56 metrics are accepted to be included in the proposed model. Furthermore, findings revealed that the proposed model is comprehensive, consistent, relevant, and well-organized for Agile projects.INDEX TERMS Expert review, quality characteristics, software test metrics, test case quality, test case quality assessment.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, in [31], Tran et al studied TCQ from Sweden's professional developers' and testers' perspectives. They identified 11 characteristics for the quality of manual TCs.…”

Section: A Test Case Quality Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Verifying Agile Black-Box Test Case Quality Measurements: Expert Review

Barraood,

Mohd,

Baharom

et al. 2023

IEEE Access

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show abstract

“…Bowes et al [19] conducted a workshop with industry practitioners and elicited 15 unit testing principles and best practices that are expected to result in high quality tests. Tran et al [54] interviewed six practitioners and identified 11 quality characteristics for natural language tests, of which test understandability, simplicity and test step cohesion were mentioned most frequently. Finally, Grano et al [44] interviewed five testing experts and developed a unit test quality taxonomy that includes behavioral, structural and executional facets.…”

Section: Test Case and Test Suite Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Proposals for defining test case quality [19,44,54], adapting existing quality models for testing [72] and proposals to organize software testing research [5,31,108] exist. However, there are no commonly agreed upon quality models, frameworks or taxonomies for the quality of test cases or test suites.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing test artifact quality—A tertiary study

Tran

Unterkalmsteiner

Börstler

et al. 2021

Information and Software Technology

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Investigating the readability of test code

Winkler,

Urbanke,

Ramler

2024

Empir Software Eng

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Context The readability of source code is key for understanding and maintaining software systems and tests. Although several studies investigate the readability of source code, there is limited research specifically on the readability of test code and related influence factors. Objective In this paper, we aim at investigating the factors that influence the readability of test code from an academic perspective based on scientific literature sources and complemented by practical views, as discussed in grey literature. Methods First, we perform a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) with a focus on scientific literature. Second, we extend this study by reviewing grey literature sources for practical aspects on test code readability and understandability. Finally, we conduct a controlled experiment on the readability of a selected set of test cases to collect additional knowledge on influence factors discussed in practice. Results The result set of the SMS includes 19 primary studies from the scientific literature for further analysis. The grey literature search reveals 62 sources for information on test code readability. Based on an analysis of these sources, we identified a combined set of 14 factors that influence the readability of test code. 7 of these factors were found in scientific and grey literature, while some factors were mainly discussed in academia (2) or industry (5) with only limited overlap. The controlled experiment on practically relevant influence factors showed that the investigated factors have a significant impact on readability for half of the selected test cases. Conclusion Our review of scientific and grey literature showed that test code readability is of interest for academia and industry with a consensus on key influence factors. However, we also found factors only discussed by practitioners. For some of these factors we were able to confirm an impact on readability in a first experiment. Therefore, we see the need to bring together academic and industry viewpoints to achieve a common view on the readability of software test code.

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Test-Case Quality – Understanding Practitioners’ Perspectives

Cited by 9 publications

References 20 publications

Verifying Agile Black-Box Test Case Quality Measurements: Expert Review

Verifying Agile Black-Box Test Case Quality Measurements: Expert Review

Assessing test artifact quality—A tertiary study

Investigating the readability of test code

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