Chapter 5. Choosing examples for scenario outlines

Did you know that female drivers are 47% more likely than male drivers to be seriously injured in a car crash? When safety regulations were originally imposed on automakers in the 1960s, the government wanted to require the use of two crash test dummies of two slightly different sizes. Doing so would mean that only 5% of men were larger than and 5% of women were smaller than the dummies. But automakers pushed back, and, eventually, the requirement was reduced to only one crash test dummy the size of an average male, making tests more standardized.

Then, in 2011, for the first time female crash test dummies were required in safety testing. The results forced some automakers to slash their safety ratings by more than half, from a top five-star rating to just two stars. According to the test data, when a car slams into a barrier at 35 mph, a female dummy in the front passenger seat registers a 20% to 40% risk of being killed or seriously injured. The average using the male dummy is just 15%.

5.1. Example shopping application

5.2. Writing outside-in scenario outlines

5.3. Finding key examples for scenario outlines

5.4. Avoiding scenario outline anti-patterns

5.5. Answers to exercises

5.6. Summary