TL;DR
Now that we know about the Taxonomy Of Bugs for shopping cards created by Giri Vijayaraghavan and Cem Kaner, let’s learn how to create our own Software Testing Taxonomies using this excellent paper: Bug Taxonomies: Use Them to Generate Better Tests [Vijayaraghavan, Kaner]. Who uses Taxonomies? Many thanks to Marcel, who sublimed this great resource on his blog, That’s the buffet table.
Taxonomy Examples
Many disciplines are using taxonomies. For example, there is a Facial Gesture Taxonomy. As this blog post is about software testing, we will list several interesting Fault Taxonomies. The best way is to learn from mistakes made by other software testers.
Taxonomy must have an objective.
Simple 2×2 Matrix where dimensions are defined with authorized/not authorized use of computer or program resources. The objective is to assess threats for penetration against computer access and program resources.
In Aslam’s UNIX Security Taxonomy, the objective is UNIX OS security.
Software testing has two excellent Taxonomies about software testing faults:
- Boris Beizer’s “Bug Taxonomy”
- Cem Kaner’s appendix of “Common Software Errors” (Kaner et al.,)
Remember
When you are stuck with testing ideas, just Google for your application domain along with word Taxonomy.
