What is scripted testing?
Scripted testing is an approach to testing that is aimed at confirming that a product meets expectations set from requirements. Scripted testing typically uses test cases to aid the comparison between the expectations and the product itself. Scripted testing is sometimes referred to as checking to emphasize that scripted testing does not cover investigative testing activities. And scripted testing is usually reported in a quantitative manner following the pass or fail output of whether the expectation is met or not.
Got any examples?
So an example of a test case could be step one, browse to the search screen. Step two, add search criteria. Step three, click on the search button. The expected result is that the relevant search results relating to the search criteria should be displayed in the results table, and the table should be paginated to ten results per page.
What's the value of scripted testing?
So scripted testing could be a good starting point to follow steps to help understand how to operate the software and how it's expected to operate. Scripted testing can easily be repeated for change detection. If a previously passed expectation is now being met, we can assume something has changed. Scripted testing can also stem other testing activities that complement scripted testing in line with the whole testing picture.
What pitfalls exist with scripted testing?
So an overreliance on scripted testing means that you will miss potential bugs and information. Scripted testing is also expensive. It takes time to create and maintain scripted tests, and scripted testing alone does not constitute the whole of testing. There are many misconceptions about this.
