All students who sign up for the Test Design course must have successfully completed the BBST® Foundations course.

The BBST® Test Design course aims to help you become a more adaptable tester, giving you the knowledge to thrive in this fast-paced industry. You will learn to design powerful tests that lead to the discovery of important bugs with both exploratory testing and test automation. The course introduces a collection of 75 testing techniques and then presents the following subset of them in detail:

  • functional testing and tours
  • risk-based testing
  • spec-based testing
  • scenario testing
  • domain testing
  • multivariable testing

You will get extensive practice with the six techniques above, and a good understanding of their core strengths, their limitations and their applicability to your own context.

Course Details:

 Fully Online

 3 weeks of classes

 1 week for exam

REGISTRATION

*The final number of instructors might differ based on the number of students joining the class. We reserve the right to change, remove or add other instructors if the situation requires it. We guarantee that all modifications are made to ensure the highest quality possible.

BBST® TEST DESIGN COURSE DETAILS

The course includes video lectures, quizzes, homework of various kinds, and a final exam. All of the homework, and the exam, are reviewed by instructors, and individual + class-wide feedback is provided.

We have strict deadlines in the course to keep you on track and synchronized with your classmates so feedback from peers is available for everyone. Each week has two deadlines: Wednesday night at midnight and Saturday at midnight. Not in our time zone? That’s no problem at all. Your Canvas classroom calendar will convert the time zones for you.

Here are the objectives of this course:

 Gain familiarity with a variety of test techniques (Remember)

 Learn structures for comparing objectives and strengths of different test techniques (Understand)

 Use the Heuristic Test Strategy Model(Bach) for test planning and design (Apply)

 Use concept mapping tools for test planning and specification-based analysis (Analyze)

 Function testing (Apply)

 Risk-based testing (Analyze)

 Specification-based testing (Analyze)

 Domain testing (Create)

 Scenario testing (Understand)

 Multi-variable testing (Apply)

By this time you probably are familiar with interactive grading. In case you have not yet opted for it, we encourage you to give it a try.
As Cem Kaner defines it, interactive grading is “a technique that requires the student to participate in the grading of their work”. This provides an opportunity for the students to better demonstrate what they understood from the course material, and to get helpful feedback directly from the instructor on what to improve and how.

We think that interactive grading encapsulates the essence of formative assessment, by focusing on the learning experience of the student, not on the grade. For more info on interactive grading, please read Cem Kaner’s post here.

An important note is that during interactive grading, your grade on the exam cannot go lower than in the case of an evaluation where you receive written feedback. The session can only help you demonstrate more knowledge and thus increase your grade. With this weight lifted off from your chest, it is worth mentioning that our focus is on the learning experience during the course, and not on the grade.

For this course, as you are accustomed already, you will use multiple resources to study:

 the video lectures and slides

 the assignments and labs in the Canvas platform

 the required and recommended readings

The assignments are based on all these resources. This means that you will need to use them all in your learning in order to successfully accomplish the tasks for the course.

COURSE TESTIMONIALS

It is a good one, not an easy one. It lead to a lot of learning on particular bugs and how to target them, thinking in terms of test techniques. It’s definitely worth the investment and can help you grow your testing skills.

Maaret Pyhäjärvi, Principal Test Engineer at Vaisala

BBST® TEST DESIGN INSTRUCTORS

Cem Kaner
Cem KanerBBST® instructor and content owner
As a Professor of Software Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology, Cem Kaner’s research was focused on software engineering, primarily software testing, software metrics, and computer law & ethics.

His career is centered around a consistent theme: enhancing the satisfaction and safety of software customers, users, and developers.

Ru Cindrea
Ru CindreaBBST® instructor
Ru Cindrea is a senior test consultant and managing partner at Altom. With over 20 years of experience, she believes all testing is exploratory and applies this mindset to complex testing challenges and when building test automation frameworks.

Her focus has mostly been on testing mobile applications and embedded systems, as well as on automating game testing, where she is one of the main developers of the open-source AltUnity Tester tool.

She has been a BBST® instructor for over 10 years and she has been working on developing the BBST materials and practical assignments that draw from her past project experiences.

John McConda
John McCondaBBST® instructor
John McConda is a career tester, starting with his first internship in 2000 at JD Power in Los Angeles. He is currently the Quality Engineering Technology Leader at Moser Consulting. John began instructing for the BBST® courses in 2008 and loves teaching and mentoring in the Software Quality field. He also co-organized the Workshop on Regulated Testing in 2006 and still facilitates the workshop twice a year at STAR conferences.

Whenever he gets free time from his wife and five kids, John enjoys playing guitar, writing songs, and studying theology.

Oana Casapu
Oana CasapuBBST® instructor
Oana Casapu has been working as a tester, test manager, and project manager on a variety of projects for over 18 years.

Her focus lately has been on contributing to the testing community. Together with her fellow testers, she organizes monthly meetups in Cluj-Napoca and facilitates events for the Tabara de Testare community.

Ray Oei
Ray OeiBBST® instructor
Ray Oei is currently CTO at Gamgee Netherlands BV. coaching, mentoring and managing all techies. He has been active in the IT field for over 33 years, of which several years as trainer and coach.

He is a founding member of DEWT (Dutch Exploratory Workshop on Testing) and has been a speaker at several test conferences. He is greatly interested in the human factor of testing as well as the challenges in investigating software in different contexts. He enjoys teaching and helping people learn more about the beauty of testing

Alexandra Casapu
Alexandra CasapuBBST® instructor
Alexandra Casapu specializes in exploratory testing using heuristics and testing techniques adapted to context. She enjoys coaching and mentoring other testers, shaping teams, and company-wide testing approaches, as well as doing hands-on testing.

She is currently Principal Quality Engineer at Native Instruments and co-founder of GISCollective.

In her free time, she enjoys programming, reading, and practicing critical thinking skills.