Updated Periodic Table of Testing including full-text version

22 Jul 2026

This was updated in June 2025. It has been quite some time since I last updated my Periodic Table of Testing. The 10th of December 2018, to be exact. Creating a more accessible version of the table with a list version has been on my to-do list for far too long. I apologise to anyone who has tried to access this and not been able to do so. 

Well, after a lot of procrastinating, distractions and personal shifts, I’ve finally done it, along with updating the table itself. Not including things like Quality Engineering, Continuous Quality, and Quality Coaching, among other long-overdue changes, has also been bugging me for a long time. 

So here is the long-awaited Version 3 of my Periodic Table of Testing with alternative text below.
Periodic Table of Testing version 3. See list below for contents.

Periodic Table of Testing Version 3 in list form. 


Testing elements

Customer
  • IL – Inclusive Language
  • CJ – Customer Journeys
  • CT – Customer Tours
  • UX – UX / UI
  • EE – End to End
  • AC – Accessibility (WCAG)
  • TF – Testing Fundamentals

Web
  • UB – Usability 
  • GM – Gamification
  • CB – Cross Browser
  • RD – Real Devices
  • RES – Responsive
  • OS – Operating Systems
  • WM – Web / Mobile / App

Exploratory 
  • PR – Pairing
  • IA – Integration Tests
  • VA – Value Adding
  • TG – Testing Goals
  • DC – Discovery
  • EP – Exploration 

Data Protection
  • AT – Attacks (DDOS etc.)
  • ExP – External Penetration
  • IP – Internal Penetration
  • UA – User Access / Permissions / Roles
  • SEC – Security

Technical Elements

Digital 
  • AI – Artificial Intelligence
  • IoT – Internet of Things
  • CD – Cloud
  • SOC – Social
  • MB – Mobile
  • AN – Analytics

Tests
  • AIA – AI-Assisted Testing 
  • TC – Technical ‘Testing’
  • SCS – Server Side / Client Side
  • AU – Automation 
  • LD – Living Documents
  • UT – Unit Tests

Tools / Items
  • ML – Machine Learning 
  • AP – API Testing 
  • OML – Observability / Monitorability / Logs 
  • DA – Test Data
  • TA – Testability

Performance
  • SL – Scalability
  • PPP – Physical PC Performance
  • AR – Application Resourcing
  • CP – Capacity
  • LP – Load / Volume Performance

Personal Elements

Sources
  • CF – Conference (obviously MoTaCon is best)
  • CS – Communities / Social Media
  • MS – Media Sources 
  • BK – Books 
  • CO – Coaching 

Communications
  • PR – Pairing
  • RP – Reporting
  • AI – Actionable Insights
  • DB – Describe Behaviour
  • COL – Collaboration 

Aims
  • CG – Career Goals
  • YG – Year Goals
  • PG – Project Goals
  • SG – Session Goals
  • GL – Goals (Any) 

People
  • ST – Strategic Thinking
  • LD – Leadership Development 
  • QC – Quality Coaching 
  • MN – Mentoring
  • CL – Continuous Learning

Technique Elements

Indicators
  • CH – Checklists
  • YO – Your Own
  • EX – Experience
  • HCS – Heuristics / Cheat Sheets
  • HOM – Heuristics / Oracles /Mnemonics 

Approaches
  • SYT – Systems Thinking 
  • QE – Quality Engineering 
  • CQ – Continuous Quality   
  • CR – Critical Thinking
  • PS – Personas
  • TC – Test Charters 
  • RB – Risk-Based Testing

Methods
  • WF – Waterfall 
  • PDD – Practice Driven Development 
  • ScT – Scientific Theory
  • XP – Extreme Programming
  • SbE – Specification by Example
  • WoW – Ways of Working 
  • AG – Agile (Agnostic) 

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Ady Stokes
Freelance Consultant
He / Him

MoT Ambassador. Currently semi-retired and freelancing. I am, amongst other things, a writer, speaker, and accessibility advocate. Leeds Chapter Lead. MoT Certs curator and article editor for WonderProxy. Testing wisdom, friendly, testing songs and poems. Great minds think differently. STEC and SQEC Certified. Struggling to write a book about testing mindsets and thinking's application in software development.

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