Pragmatic Software Testing: Becoming an Effective and Efficient Test Professional

Chapter 17. Domain Testing Exercise

Let’s apply the domain testing test technique to the Omninet project.

The Omninet marketing team requests a change to the Marketing Requirements Document, section 3.1.2, to add the following paragraph:

A frequent surfer is someone who has used an Omninet kiosk in the last four weeks. A frequent surfer who purchases one or more blocks of time (at five minutes per block) receives a bonus block of time (also five minutes) for each block purchased. The total time given (paid plus bonus blocks) for any single payment transaction shall not exceed one hour.

The exercise is to draw a graph showing the blocks of time purchased, the total (paid and bonus) blocks received by the customer, and the domain test values you would want to cover. Next, create a set of tests to cover the domain test values and ensure proper payment processing and time sold to frequent surfers and regular surfers. Finally, jot down any other test considerations this change creates, if any.

I haven’t provided a template for this exercise because it would constrain your choices in how to analyze the domains. I suggest 60 minutes as a time limit. When you’re done, keep reading to see my solution.

My Solution and Comments

If what you want to test is only the delivery of the proper number of time blocks to the two kinds of surfers, you might have drawn one graph, as shown in Figure 17-1. The figure shows the test points I would cover. Notice that I did subdomain analysis on each of the two ...