Activity 5: Introduction

Hey, future testers!

In this activity, you will be immersed in the realm of test design techniques with a focus on equivalence partitioning (EP) and boundary value analysis (BVA). Don’t worry about the terminology – you will soon understand what they are and how to apply them.

EP and BVA play a key role in crafting effective and efficient test cases, helping to identify potential defects in our software. You’ll start by learning about what these two key techniques of software testing are before creating your own test cases with EP. You’ll have a chance to share and discuss your cases with your fellow learners.

Next, you will take a closer look at BVA, followed by another hands-on task for you to create test cases.

By comparing and contrasting BVA and EP in the final tasks, you’ll get a clear picture of when to use which technique. Understanding and applying these techniques allows you to cover a broad range of inputs and scenarios with fewer test cases. This leads to time and cost savings in the testing process while ensuring a high level of quality in the software you deliver.

Learning outcomes

On completion of this activity you should be able to:

• Apply knowledge of test design techniques to write and evaluate test cases for a simple software program.