I am about to undertake a project for university, and given the project scope I have decided to use XP/agile methodology. I have began with developing a use case diagram; gathering user stories for the first couple features.
I am in the process of helping the customer develop the acceptance test and my question is: can the user stories for each feature be used as a user acceptance test?
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You shouldn´t.
Acceptance tests are black box system tests. Each acceptance test represents some expected result from the system after a certain input.
For example, a valid user story for a calculator is:
“As a user, I want to sum two numbers”
An its acceptance tests:
- 0+0 = 0
- 1+1 = 2
- 876+154 = 1030
The User Story itself cannot because it really answers the “why” question in understanding the value.
However, for each User Story you can create scenarios, and automate these scenarios to be your acceptance tests. Take a look at Behavior Driven Development (BDD).
No it is better to separate the two concepts :
Acceptance Tests define exactly what the system has to do before the customer will consider it “Done”.They don’t just include functional requirements; they also test the non-functional stuff like performance, security, and useability. If functionally is not covered by the Acceptance Tests, it’s not required by the customer.No story or feature can be said to be done until the suite of acceptance tests that define it are passing.
User stories are short, simple description of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, usually a user or customer of the system. They typically follow a simple template:
As a <type of user>, I want <some goal> so that <some reason>.
Below a couple of links for further readings :
http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/topics/user-stories
This depends on exactly what the scope of your user stories are – if they are broadly scoped, for example ‘a user signs in to a site, confirms his email and receives his download’, then ‘no’; however is your user stories are narrowly scoped for example ‘a user with a queue of 1)a and 2)b, sends a request to get the next movie, ‘a’ is not available, then send ‘b’, then ‘yes’.
I would be happy to update this answer AFTER you provide one or two samples of your user stories.