The purpose of this artifact is to:

• provide a way to capture test inputs, conditions, and expected results for a system
• systematically identify aspects of the software to test
• specify whether an expected result has been reached based on verification of a system requirement, set of requirements, or scenario

A test case specifies the conditions which need to be validated to enable an assessment of some particular aspects of the system under test. A test case is more formal than a test idea and usually takes the form of a specification. In less formal environments, test cases can be created by identifying a unique ID, name, associated test data, and expected results. For an example of this type of test case, see Template: Test Case.

Test cases may be derived from many sources but will usually include a subset of both the requirements (such as use cases, performance characteristics, reliability concerns) and other types of quality attributes. For more information on types of tests and their relationship to quality test attributes, see Concept: Types of Test.