ABSTRACT
Context: Legacy software systems are usually critical to the operation of the business, but often difficult and expensive to maintain. The maintenance of a legacy system involves many challenges such as incomplete or outdated documentation and lack of expertise, which make it difficult to maintain the system. As the system evolves, it goes through significant testing to ensure the proper operation after changes. For quality testing, it is essential to have quality test specifications. Developing quality test specifications requires a clear understanding of the quality aspects that are concerned in test specifications.
Objective: In this chapter, we present a survey study on test specification qualities. The survey studies the most concerned qualities for test specifications of legacy systems, other quality aspects that are considered as important in the field, the factors that affect the qualities of test specifications, and field difficulties in developing quality test specifications.
Method: For the sake of generality, the survey was conducted among experienced industry experts from diverse domains with various technology backgrounds.
Results: The survey reveals that accuracy is the most desired quality in test specifications. Other qualities considered as important by experts are reusability, completeness, repeatability, and efficiency in the order of importance. The survey also identifies requirements clarity, application knowledge, domain knowledge, and user behavior understanding as the major factors that affect the development of quality test specifications.
