1.2Anatomy of a Good Test Case

Every test case, regardless of your tooling (TestRail, Zephyr, Google Sheets, or plain Markdown), should include these fields:

Field	Purpose	Example
ID	Unique reference for traceability	TC-LOGIN-004
Title	One-line summary of what is being verified	Verify login fails with expired password
Preconditions	State the system must be in before starting	User account exists with password expired 1 day ago
Steps	Numbered, atomic actions	1. Navigate to /login 2. Enter email 3. Enter expired password 4. Click Submit
Expected Result	Observable, measurable outcome	Error message "Your password has expired" is displayed; user is not redirected to dashboard
Actual Result	Filled during execution	(blank until run)
Test Data	Specific values needed	Email: expired@test.com, Password: OldPass123!
Priority	Execution order importance	High

The ID Convention

Use a consistent naming pattern across your project. Common formats:

• TC-MODULE-NNN (e.g., TC-LOGIN-004, TC-CART-012)
• FEATURE.SCENARIO.NNN (e.g., AUTH.EXPIRED_PW.001)
• Auto-incrementing numeric IDs from your test management tool

The format matters less than consistency. Pick one and enforce it.

Title Best Practices

The title should answer "what is being verified?" in one line. Start with a verb:

• Good: "Verify login fails with expired password"
• Good: "Confirm item quantity updates in cart after increment"
• Bad: "Login test" (too vague)
• Bad: "Test that when a user who has an expired password tries to log in the system shows an error" (too long)