On the Role of Defect Taxonomy Types for Testing Requirements: Results of a Controlled Experiment

Context: The use of defect taxonomies and their assignment to requirements can improve system-level testing of requirements. Experiences from industrial applications indicate that the type of the underlying top-level defect categories constitutes the main influence factor for defining defect taxonomies. Objective: The objective addressed in this paper is to investigate the influence of the type of top-level defect categories on the quality of the created defect taxonomy, on the quality of the assignment of requirements to defect categories as well as the quality of designed test cases. Method: We conducted a controlled student experiment to determine the influence of two different types of top-level defect categories, i.e., Generic and web application specific, on the quality of the created defect taxonomy, their assignment to requirements and the derived test cases. Results: The results indicate an influence of the type of the top-level defect categories on the quality of the derived defect taxonomy but no influence on the quality of the assignment of requirements to defect categories and the quality of the designed test cases. Contribution: The main contributions of this paper is the empirical investigation of the role of the type of top-level defect taxonomies themselves for testing requirements and the consequences of the results for industrial application.