A Case Study on Pairwise Testing Application

Amongst several software testing techniques, the pair wise testing presents itself as a very promising technique, drastically reducing the number of test cases for a satisfying coverage level. On the other hand, as it basically relies on empirical facts and few documented studies tackle its usage, the benefits of this technique are still uncertain. In order to better understand it, this case study presents a comparison of an ad-hoc testing against pair wise testing applied under the same conditions. Ad-hoc and pair wise test cases were generated and performed on an industry application, and the pair wise tests were able to expose exactly the same defects as the ad-hoc tests, with roughly five times less effort. With these results, it is suggested that pair wise testing, combined to other techniques, skills, and knowledge on the business might be useful to reduce testing cost while increasing test quality.