Acceptance Criteria
Acceptance criteria define the conditions that must be satisfied before a feature or user story is considered complete and acceptable.
“The criteria that a work product must satisfy to be accepted by the stakeholders.”
(Definition reproduced from the ISTQB Glossary. Copyright belongs to ISTQB.)
View the complete ISTQB GlossaryWhat is Acceptance Criteria?
Acceptance criteria specify expected behavior from the user's perspective. They provide a shared understanding between developers, testers, and stakeholders and serve as the basis for acceptance testing.
Purpose: Clarify what success looks like before development begins.
Role in testing: Test cases are derived directly from acceptance criteria.
Collaboration: Well-written acceptance criteria reduce misunderstandings between business and technical teams.
Real World Example
A healthcare scheduling team is building a feature that lets patients book follow-up appointments after a consultation.
Developers, testers, clinicians, and product owners may all believe they understand the request while imagining different rules. Acceptance criteria gives the team a shared way to confirm intent.
The tester turns clinical and business expectations into concrete examples, such as eligible appointment windows, unavailable doctors, and messages shown when no slot is open.
The team prevents late rework because Acceptance criteria makes expected behavior testable before the feature is treated as finished.
Practice Questions
Question 1
Which of the following is the BEST example of an acceptance criterion?
Question 2
Why is it important to define acceptance criteria BEFORE development begins?
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