Testing ASP.NET Web Applications

6.1. Acceptance Testing Terminology

One of the problems you'll face with acceptance testing is that the term has been used for many different techniques and approaches throughout the years. Sometimes the meanings are related and share a common concept. Other times people can be talking about completely different forms of testing. We've provided an overview of the different terminology next:

• Acceptance Testing. Also includes customer acceptance testing, user acceptance testing, and functional tests

• Executable Specification. The advantage of having acceptance tests as they form a specification which can be run to verify if the implementation matches what the specification defines

• Customer. The end-user of the system

• System. The application being developed

• Acceptance. Meets the functional and nonfunctional requirements

• Functional Requirements. Features and actions the system must perform, such as display items or allowing users to log in to the system

• Nonfunctional Requirements. Factors around the system, such as performance, scalability, and security

• Black Box. Not dependent on internal details or prior knowledge of the system. Data goes in, results come out. That is all the tests should be aware of.

However, although you can define the terminology, we still don't think this gives an accurate picture of how acceptance testing applies to the development lifecycle. Although the concept of acceptance testing has been around for a long period of time, it has gained more attention in recent ...