Network Testing: Projects

Design Brief

When it comes to testing networks or network devices it's never a one and done scenario. It's lot like designing or developing a product... lots of testing, lots of troubleshooting and lots of iterations.

After several interviews with our users we learned that they typically work with what we, as product designer, might refer to as Requirements Documents, which they call Test Case documents. These documents are organized in sections referred to as Test Cases. Each Test Case has a set of requirements that need to be fulfilled in order to 'pass.'

With that in mind I realized that we needed a way to allow our users to construct a series of tests that will fulfill each of the Test Cases. I also realized it would be very helpful if that group of tests could live in one big container... I called this container a Project.

Projects allows a user, or a team of users to organize tests into each of the Test Cases defined in their Test Case document. Once a Project has been constructed and each test has been configured they can set the Project to run each individual test or run them all as a group. Each Project will also keep track of how successful the Project is doing. Such as by providing an aggregated grade for each of the tests that have been run so far or how complete the Project is based on each of the Test Case's series of tests fulfillment of the requirements.

Projects allow a team and their managers to keep track of, well, a project as a whole in one, helpful location.