Behavior-Driven Development

In last week’s class, we were tasked with creating an activity related to our course material. Our group decided on behavior-driven development (BDD) since it is related to test-driven development, which we discussed in class. BDD’s approach is user-focused and prioritizes understanding between the development team and users, but it has yet to be discussed in class. Since the post was well-organized and informative, focusing on aspects that could help developers improve their code, I decided to talk about BDD for my blog post this week. 

The blog post “Behavior-driven development principles and practices,” by Philip Rogers outlines the basics of BDD, detailing its history, principles, and practices. Phillip explains that BDD is centered around three principles: what the software could do, what the software should do, and what the software does.

1. What the Software Could Do: This principle involves understanding what the customer wants from the software. They use discovery workshops to outline what the developers should prioritize and resolve any confusion between the users behaviors and the team.
2. What the Software Should Do: This principle focuses on creating documentation in a human and computer readable format. This includes the given-when-then format that describes the user’s behaviors and how the software should respond. 
3. What the Software Does: This principle focuses on using the documentation or scenarios to create automated tests and improving the code until it aligns with the customer’s requirements and the team’s goals.

The blog post also discusses Gherkin, a language used in BDD to bridge the gap between human and computer understanding. The syntax used in Gherkin helps capture user scenarios and articulate how the automated tests should work to align with those scenarios. Philip also explains the benefits of BDD, such as improved collaboration and reduced rework, and the cons, including high level of business engagement and the lack of compatibility with traditional software development. 

After reading this blog post, I better understood the BDD process and why these principles are in place. It highlighted why there would be a need to deviate from or expand test-driven development. There should be a focus on how users interact with the system using communicative language to reduce the creation of faulty features.  

In the future, I plan on being mindful of the user’s experience and creating software with my team to meet the users and, in turn, the team’s expectations. I will also look into a Gherkin and try to understand the syntax better to produce better tests and end products. 

The Blog Post: https://blog.logrocket.com/product-management/behavior-driven-development-principles-practices/