Partition testing with usage models

Abstract The fundamental statistical strategy of improving sampling efficiency through partitioning the population is applied to software testing. Usage models make it possible to apply this strategy to improve the efficiency of testing. The testing budget is allocated to the blocks of the partition, and the software is executed on the sample of uses drawn from each block or sub-population of potential uses. Usage models support many strategies for automated partitioning and generating test cases from the partitioned population. Two strategies are shown here with the efficiency gains demonstrated.