The keyword-driven testing methodology divides test creation into two stages:
Planning Stage
Analyzing the application and determining which objects and
operations are used by the set of business processes that need to be
tested.
Determining which operations require customized keywords to
provide additional functionality, to achieve business-level clarity,
and/or to maximize efficiency and maintainability.
Implementation Stage
Building a collection of references that uniquely identify
objects, sometimes known as an "object repository", and ensuring that
all such references have clear names that follow any predetermined
naming conventions. (This is primarily for test automation.)
Developing and documenting business-level keywords in function
libraries. Creating function libraries involves developing customized
functions for the application that needs to be tested.
Although this methodology requires more planning and a longer initial
time-investment than going directly to the test creation stage and recording
your steps, this methodology makes the test creation and test maintenance stages
more efficient and keeps the structure of individual tests more readable and
easier to modify.
While a keyword-driven methodology is mostly useful for automated testing,
some manual testing systems like Mercury Interactive's TestDirector for Quality
Center allow a similar procedure for manual testing as well.
