Website Development Test Plan
This is a practical guide to building a test plan for a website development project — the approach, scope and schedule for testing the deliverables, adapted to the realities of designing and building a new website.
What a Test Plan is
A test plan is the approach, scope and schedule for testing the deliverables. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Test Plan. On a website development project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Website Development project
Website Development projects live or die on designing and building a new website. A well-built test plan gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how website development projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Test scope and objectives
- Test cases/scenarios
- Environments
- Entry/exit criteria
- Defect management
Website Development-specific considerations
Tailor the test plan to the risks that most often derail website development projects:
- Scope creep from stakeholder requests
- Content readiness delays
- Browser/device compatibility
Example
On a real website development project, the test plan would be shaped by designing and building a new website. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — scope creep from stakeholder requests, content readiness delays, browser/device compatibility — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.