Questioning Patterns A.K.A.

Q Patterns

Vipul Kocher
Gaurav Khera
River Run Software Group
FLOW
Setting the expectations right
• What the presentation may not do for you
– Will not go into the details of all the patterns that
are listed.
– Will not make you an expert, in 30 minutes, on
how to identify and document new patterns.

• What the patterns may not do for you

– Give you a new revolutionary approach/concept to
testing.
– Make your testing process improve dramatically
– Reduce your testing time. It will probably be
increased by providing you with more test cases
Setting the expectations right...
• What the presentation will do for you
– Give you an overview of Q Patterns
– Walk you through one Q pattern
– Briefly tell you how to find new patterns
• What the patterns will do for you
– Give you better and tester independent test cases
– Give you better defined and crafted design and
code
– Capture the learning for the organization as well
as individual
What are questioning patterns?
A Questioning Pattern is a set of questions,
arranged in a pre-defined format, designed to
evoke answers related to certain aspect of
the given system.
These patterns are primarily meant for testers
but can be used by developers writing
specifications, design or involved in coding
with equal or probably more benefits.
 Documenting the Q Patterns
• Name of the Pattern
• Intent/Explanation/Definition
• Questions related to:
• Administration
• Usage
• UI
• Security
• Performance
• Specialization
• <Associated patterns>
List Handling/Management
 What is a list?
• A common construct composed of
‘elements’
• Denotes a record set
• May have Single or Multiple columns
• Some examples of a list are:
– User list, File list, Access Rights list etc.
– A form or a table displaying database
records
– Combo/List box
Examples of lists
 Administration
• Who creates the list?
• When is the list created?
• Who administers the list?

<<Associated Pattern: Access Rights Pattern>>

 Usage
• Contents
– Homogeneous v/s
Heterogeneous
– Max and Min Limits (Number
and Size of elements)
– Duplicate Entries: Are they
allowed?
– How do you distinguish
between similar entries.
 Usage...
• List Creation/Modification/Deletion
– Are addition/deletions added to top/bottom of list
(in the actual list/database/data structure)?
– Are the additions displayed at the beginning/start
of the list, end of list or sorted?
• Storage
• Sorting
• Navigation
• Searching <<Associated Pattern: Search>>
 UI
• Display
– Single/Multiple Column or form based?
– Visual distinction for heterogeneous elements?
• Selection of Elements
– Are multiple selection allowed?
– Multiple selection method: keyboard/mouse?
– Contiguous v/s broken selection?
– Allowed actions on selected entries?
• Can properties of all selected elements be
viewed?
 Security
• Encryption: Individual item v/s Container
of the items
• Password for accessing data
• Different Levels of Security:
Administrator/User level

<<Associated Pattern: Access Rights>>

 Performance
• Load/Fetch
 What is the Connection media (Internet/LAN/Local)
 How is connection break handled? (Resume?)
• Display Time Strategy
 All loaded in one go: Performance parameters?
 Loaded in increments:
 Default/Max/Min increment?
 Can user set the increment?
 Any look-ahead caching/optimization?
 Specialization
You can specialize/customize these
questions for different types of lists.
Examples:
– User Lists for a given software
• OS/Database user lists
– Combo/List boxes
– A table displaying records
– Multi-Column Lists etc.
 Other Suggested Patterns
• Access Rights
• Password Management
• Groups and Templates
• Error Reporting/Logging
• Web Related: Java Applet/HTML Pages etc.
• Installation
 Where to now?
• egroups discussion list
http://www.egroups.com/group/questioningpatterns
• This list will enable everybody to participate in
an ever-increasing repository of knowledge.
• We may form a non-profit committee or a
focussed group to select/make changes to
these patterns and add to the collection.
 Contact Information
• http://www.egroups.com/group/questioning
patterns

• kocher@hotmail.com
• gkhera23@yahoo.com