Acceptance Criteria¶
Acceptance Criteria are conditions that a software product must satisfy to be accepted by a user, customer or other stakeholder. They are “conditions of satisfaction”, meaning that there is no partial acceptance: either a condition is met or it is not.
Acceptance Criteria can be written as a set of statements that include clear pass/fail results, and specify functional [minimal deliverable functionality], non-functional [minimal quality], and performance [response time] requirements applicable at the current phase of project integration.
Examples:
Functional Criteria: Recognize specific user tasks, functions or processes that must be in place. Such as, “A user is able to access a list of available reports.”
Non-functional Criteria: Identify specific non-functional conditions that an application must meet, as in design elements. Such as “Edit and Workflow buttons conform with the application’s button design specifications.”
Performance Criteria: If specific performance needs are critical to the acceptance of a user story, they should be included. This is often measured as a response time, and should be written as “Verify that responses to user save or submit actions are less than 10 seconds.”