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Channel inputs could include:

• Channel: typical web transaction, typical web transaction, phone call center (Note: double-weighting ‘typical web transaction’ will make it show up twice as often as ‘phone call center’)

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Additional Environmental Variations involve file types and storage locations

• Flight schedule information for flights is stored: Database Huey, Database Dooey, Database Louie
• Frequent Flier Mileage data stored in: United database, (Frontier Airlines database; not yet transferred into post-merger database), N/A

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For example, User Variations that may be considered in end-to-end tests of https://www.expedia.com/Flights, might include:

• User type: normal user (without prior account), normal user (with established account), call center agent
• User persona: power user, clueless newbie user, typical user
• Account characteristics: Gold Frequent Flier, Silver Frequent Flier, Bronze Frequent Flier, not a Frequent Flier

Other related ideas:

• User navigates primarily using: keyboard (hot-keys wherever possible), keyboard (no hot-keys), mouse
• User rapidly clicks multiple times on submit buttons and next buttons: no, yes, no (Note: double-weighting ‘no’ will make it appear twice as often as ‘yes’)
• User enters information from top of screen to bottom of screen: always, usually, never
• User enters all required information the first time they submit information: always, usually, never

Usage Variations

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Actions that could vary from test to test in our https://www.expedia.com/Flights example could include:

• One Way or Round Trip: One Way, Round Trip
• Destination: South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, North America
• Class of Travel: Economy, Business, First
• Special Meal Requested: None, None, Vegetarian, Kosher (Note: double-weighting ‘None’ will make it show up twice as often as ‘Vegetarian’ or ‘Kosher’)
• Saturday Night Stay-over: Yes, No

Data that might vary will often be inextricably interrelated to usage examples (directly above). Each of the user selections above, for example, would create data that should be stored by the system. That’s one of the reasons we categorize “Actions” and “Data” together as “Usage Variations.” Even so, “Data” can be useful as a trigger for additional testing ideas such as quantities, data ranges, and specific data formats. Here are some examples of test inputs that could be included from this example:

• Date format: mm/dd/yy, dd/mm/yy, mm/dd/yyy, dd/mm/yyyy
• Number of passengers: 1, 2-4, more than 4
• Special characters included in customer name?: no, yes, no (Note: recall double-weighting)

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