Abstractions on test design techniques

Automated test design is an approach to test design in which automata are utilized for generating test artifacts such as test cases and test data from a formal test basis, most often called test model. A test generator operates on such a test model to meet a certain test coverage goal. In the plethora of the approaches, tools and standards for model-based test design, the test design techniques to be applied and test coverage goals to be met are not part of the test model, which may easily lead to difficulties regarding comprehensibility and repeatability of the test design process. This paper analyzes current approaches to and languages for automated model-based test design and shows that they are lacking important information about the applied test design techniques. Based on this analysis, we propose to introduce another layer of abstraction for expressing test design techniques in a tool-independent, yet generic way.