Acceptance Tests Done Right

An Acceptance Test suite must have well-defined properties in order to provide benefits. It is important to set goals early on so we can always have a clear idea of what we want to achieve and make trade-off decisions based on those goals.

Readable by Business Folks

In this context, the expressivity of the four elements of simple design have a key role. If it is not possible to sit with an analyst or a product owner in front of the acceptance criteria to have the discussion mentioned earlier, we have a clear red alarm signal. It means that the "glue" with the business is not working properly, and the risk is very high that we'll end up with acceptance tests that are ineffective and/or useless.

It is not necessary to use heavyweight frameworks to achieve this as long as we keep the scenario specifications well sorted and separate from the implementation. Businesspeople are not intimidated if we use an underscore instead of a blank...