In the ever-evolving application landscape, it is important to deliver top-notch applications that are bug-free and fulfill user’s demands, so that users won’t get frustrated or leave the app if they can’t accomplish what they want to do. Therefore for the success of the application testers must implement thorough testing before releasing the application. Regardless of the type of testing testers implement, they need to develop test scenarios.
Test scenarios provide QA with a systematic way to create a high-level test plan to give an overview of all the features of the application that need to be tested. Designing test scenarios enables testers to view their application from the point of view of users. Here the goal is to obtain proper test coverage, catch issues, validate, and check all functionalities to ensure that the application provides a positive user experience.
In this article, we will learn how to create effective test scenarios for QA, but before we do that let’s first explore what the test scenario is, why it is so important, and its brief comparison with test scripts and cases.
What is a Test Scenario?
In application development, a test scenario holds a significant position. A test scenario is a high-level description of a use case for testing that defines the inputs, actions, and expected outcomes needed to validate different functionalities.
In other words, it represents a sequence of actions or activities while using an application or a website to validate the entire application performance including features or functionality from the end-user perspective, and ensuring that a website or app is working as expected
A tester’s job is to check the user’s interaction with the functionality and problems they may face. Test scenarios are sets of manual or automated test cases that determine the positive and negative application characteristics, enabling testers to systematically evaluate how an application behaves under various situations and spot potential issues before users encounter them.
Real and accurate test scenarios can be created by gathering input from clients, stakeholders, and developers. This helps in effectively covering all possible user scenarios, enabling comprehensive testing. When creating test scenarios, testers need to place themselves in the users’ shoes to validate the real-world scenarios that the application will have to handle after release.
Features of Test Scenario
Some of the key features of test scenarios that must be kept in mind while creating them are-
- A good test scenario must be realistic and closely simulate real-life user interactions or application behaviors. This will ensure thorough testing that covers all possible methods.
- Test scenarios should be concise and easy to understand to avoid confusion. This will enable testers to execute the scenarios accurately, making it easier for developers to fix issues identified during testing.
- Test scenarios must be reusable so that testers can execute them multiple times across different releases or builds of the application.
- A well-structured test scenario consists of detailed instructions outlining how each action needs to be performed by the tester. This makes them more efficient and reduces errors during execution.
When to use Testing Scenarios
Test scenarios are useful for achieving high test coverage. But to maximize a test scenario it’s recommended to identify suitable situations when it can be beneficial to use them. Here are a few occasions where test scenarios may not be suitable and other testing methods might be more helpful.
- Test scenarios happen throughout the application testing process to ensure it meets its requirements. If the application is unstable and there is a near deadline for completing the application quickly, test scenarios should not be used.
- The Agile methodology and a test scenario occur quickly, so it is best to use a test scenario when developing an application that needs a longer testing period
- For regressions it is not possible to create new test scenarios because the regressed feature may already have documented data from test scenarios, making it pointless to perform a new one. In this case, instead of creating new test scenarios, the existing test scenarios for the regressed features can be used to assess the application functions.
Why create Test Scenarios?
Below are some reasons for creating Test Scenarios.
Test coverage is a metric that provides the percentage of the whole application being tested. Test scenarios provide developers with ways to verify that the test coverage is adequate. They ensure that all functionalities of the application are tested, which means that there is less chance of missing important application features that need to be tested. Ultimately leading to a robust and thoroughly tested application.
Test scenarios provide a guiding map to follow during testing to ensure that all core functionality of the application is tested and working as intended based on the description in the test scenario.
Test scenarios are a high-level documented list of application features for testing. They enable the identification of the greatest number of test cases with the least overlapping, thus improving the testing process and making it more efficient.
Well-structured and detailed test scenarios can help provide a clear understanding of the application flow, and organization requirements, and estimate and organize the required effort and equipment. Overall, This enhances clarity and aids in better application testing process planning.
Helps facilitate team collaboration, and provides a better understanding of the application’s functionality and the scope of testing by serving as a communication tool between testers, developers, and stakeholders.
Well-defined test scenarios help in mitigating risks early by putting plans in place, leading to a high-quality, reliable application.
How to create an effective Test Scenario
Effectively writing complete test scenarios of the application being tested requires covering the following steps.
The first step in creating a test scenario requires practice and understanding of an application being tested. Then collect data and identify all possible user interactions including all positive and negative scenarios with the system and the expected outcomes.
Next is to isolate the interactions into smaller testable actions. Break down each step as a separate scenario in simple and concise language, and identify what possible user actions need to be tested, make sure to be specific about various inputs, expected outputs, and preconditions if any.
Then figure out the technical issues associated with the requirement then prioritize the scenarios according to their criticality and chances of occurrence. Additionally, ensure that the created scenarios cover every user flow involved in the operation of the website or app. After listing the test scenarios, creating a Traceability Matrix is essential to ensure a test scenario covers every requirement.
Get the scenarios validated by stakeholders, supervisor, team leader, or project manager involved in the project for clarity and correctness, and then make necessary revisions based on their feedback. Finally, for easier tracking during testing, organize the scenarios into suites based on the features and functionality.
Benefits of Creating a Test Scenario
Test scenario has several advantages. Some of them are-
Complete coverage- Test scenarios cover a broad scope, especially for large applications or those intended to scale in the future. It helps ensure that all the key functionalities and combinations of inputs, actions, and conditions are tested, ensuring a comprehensive view of the application functionality.
Minimal chances of missing functionality- Test scenarios are written after brainstorming, reducing the chance of missing any behavior.
Reproducibility- Test scenarios provide a clear set of steps and expected outcomes, making it easier to reproduce and validate test results. This allows for better collaboration and effective communication among team members and facilitates efficient debugging and issue resolution.
User-centric perspective- Test scenarios focus on a user-centric perspective, that is ways users might interact with the application.
Documentation- Documenting test scenarios makes it easier to track the progress of testing activities, ensuring that all requirements are adequately addressed. This allows for maintaining accountability throughout the testing process.
Test grouping- Test scenarios simplify complex application functionality by breaking them down into manageable chunks, each focusing on a specific user journey or functionality. This assists in prioritizing testing activities by assigning higher priority to scenarios associated with critical functionalities.
Reusability- Well-defined test scenarios can be reused across different iterations, one-time creation of test cases is sufficient, saving time and effort in creating new tests from scratch. This promotes efficiency in testing efforts and allows for consistent validation of application functionality.
Risk identification- By identifying potential risks early on, reduces the probability of errors in the later stage, thus minimizing the chances of application delays or failures.
Best Practices for Creating Test Scenarios
Some recommended best practices to consider when creating test scenarios are-
Focus on a single requirement- One scenario covers one requirement. Merging multiple requirements into one test scenario can increase the complexity of managing the tests and increase the possibility of overlapping test scenarios. Therefore, for the sake of simplicity, create one test scenario focusing on a single requirement or user story that is easy to understand and execute.
Prioritize critical functionalities- If one test scenario has to accommodate multiple functionalities, make sure that each functionality was previously checked separately. Otherwise, there are chances that certain functions get easily missed. In case of a large number of test scenarios or expensive to run then prioritize them according to the functionalities that significantly impact the overall system or user’s preferences.
Create well-scoped test scenarios- A well-scoped scenario contains specific information on what the tester will test, and it doesn’t cross over into other features. Therefore, while creating test scenarios it is also important to make sure that the requirements are well-scoped.
Keep it easy to understand- The test scenario should contain direct actions on what should be tested concerning the feature or requirement. They should be easy to understand and simple so that anyone can easily comprehend the purpose of the test scenario.
Identify different types of tests- various types of tests can be performed, including functional, non-functional testing, performance testing, security testing, and many more, and each of them may require different scenarios to cover all aspects adequately. Therefore it is essential to identify the appropriate test types based on the application requirements.
Use a cloud platform for creating a Test Scenario to test an application
Test scenarios are useful for test case organizing and providing high-level information on what is needed to test in the application. However, as testers scale their testing efforts, they need help to track the growing list of test scenarios, as well as the defects that are identified through the testing efforts.
In the case of a large number of test scenarios, testers face challenges in managing the tests and executing them at different layers of the application, including API and UI-level tests. Therefore using a cloud-based testing platform like LambdaTest is the best solution as it provides real devices to implement test scenarios and provide real-time insights into the testing state.
LambdaTest provides a test management tool that enables testers and QA teams to create, manage, and organize complex testing processes and track execution status by providing full visibility into changes and their impact on versioning.
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that allows manual and automation testing of both web and mobile applications at scale.
The platform also allows testers to perform real-time automation testing by providing access to more than 3000 environments, real mobile devices, and browsers, enabling developers to assess the performance and compatibility of their applications across varied platforms, different screen sizes, and multiple operating systems.
Testers can use real device clouds in testing scenarios to identify any glitches that may arise when the application is accessed on different devices. Running test cases across various environments using real devices, and browsers ensures that the applications work seamlessly in various real environments. This helps in delivering an uninterrupted user experience and optimal performing application in real-user conditions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a well-defined test scenario helps in creating well-defined test cases which improves the application test coverage. Creating test scenarios is a strategic approach that guides QA outlining a detailed map of real-world uses of the application, ensuring no important features are missed.
By outlining all possible paths a user might take, test scenarios ensure proper test coverage, guarantee that all core functionality of the application is working as intended, and ensure that nothing is overlooked, ultimately leading to a robust and thoroughly tested application.
