Acceptance Criteria
Acceptance Criteria are a set of conditions or requirements that a software product must meet to be accepted by stakeholders, typically defined in agile development. They specify the functionality, behavior, and quality standards for user stories or features, ensuring clarity and alignment between developers, testers, and product owners. They serve as a basis for testing and validation to confirm that deliverables meet business needs.
Developers should learn and use Acceptance Criteria to reduce ambiguity in requirements, prevent scope creep, and ensure that development efforts align with stakeholder expectations. They are essential in agile methodologies like Scrum or Kanban for defining 'done' criteria, facilitating effective sprint planning, and enabling automated testing through tools like Cucumber or SpecFlow. Use cases include writing user stories, creating test cases, and conducting acceptance testing in collaborative team environments.