Combinatorial Templates

Some pre- constructed tables are included in Appendix C and on the CD-ROM you got with this book. You can use them by substituting the names and values of the parameters you want to test for the entries in the template. This will be a fast way to produce tables of fewer than 10 tests without having to develop them from scratch and then verify that all of the necessary pairs are covered. Wherever an "*" appears after a letter in the template, such as B*, that means you can substitute any of the test values for that parameter and the table will still be correct.

To see how this works, create a test table based on the HALO Advanced Controls settings. Start by determining how many parameters and values you want to test. Figure 10.23 shows the five Advanced Controls parameters and their default values. The Look Sensitivity parameter can be a value from 1 to 10 and the remaining parameters are Yes/No parameters. A good set of values for Look Sensitivity would be the default, minimum, and maximum values, which are 3, 1, and 10, respectively. This test requires a combinatorial table of five parameters, where one parameter has three values and the remaining parameters have two test values. Scan through Appendix C to find that Figure C.18 corresponds to this configuration.

Figure 10.23: HALO Advanced Controls option selection screen.

For each parameter, assign one of the test values to the alphanumeric placeholders in the table template. Since Look Sensitivity is the only parameter with three values, it goes in the first column. The default value (3) will be assigned to A1, the minimum value (1) to A2, and the maximum (10) to A3. Replace each instance of A1, A2, and A3 in the table with their assigned values. The table at this point should look like Figure 10.24.

Figure 10.24: Look Sensitivity values placed into table template.

Next, choose one of the two-value parameters, and substitute its name and values in the template's ParamB column. Choose the Invert Thumbstick parameter, assigning the default value (NO) to each instance of B1 in the table and the YES value to each B2. The table now looks like Figure 10.25.

Figure 10.25: Invert Thumbstick values added to the table.

Continue this process for the remaining columns using the default values for the first entry and the remaining value for the other choice. The completed table is shown in Figure 10.26.

Figure 10.26: Completed Advanced Controls table.

To use one of the template files included in the book's CD-ROM, start by selecting the right file based on your table dimensions. If all of your test parameters have only two values, then use the file ‚  CombTemplates2Values.xls . If one or more of your parameters has three values, use the file ‚  CombTemplates3Values.xls . If you have any parameters with four or more values, then you need to construct your table by hand or see the "Combinatorial Tools" section that follows .

Once you have identified the right template file to use, click the tab at the bottom of the worksheet that corresponds to the number of test parameters you are using. Then find the template on that sheet that matches your parameter configuration.

For the HALO Advanced Controls test you just completed, you would open the ‚  CombTemplates3Values.xls file and click the "5 params" tab at the bottom of the worksheet. Scroll down until you find the table labeled "1 parameter with 3 values, 4 parameters with 2 values." You will see that this table is identical to the one in Appendix D that produced the test table in Figure 10.26. Cut this table out and paste it into your own test file. Lastly, do a textual substitution for each of the test values to arrive at the same result.