ANSWER

Of the various types of testing, the business analyst is usually most involved with Functional Testing, Regression Testing, and Usability testing.

Since the business analysts are closely involved in documenting the business requirements in the BRD and may also be writing the functional specifications, many organizations will involve the business analysts in the role of Functional Testing.  This may be to create functional test cases, or sometimes even to carry out the test cases themselves.   Regression testing is used to refer to retesting a portion of the system after a modification has been made to ensure that it still performs per spec, and typically refers to Functional Testing.

Similarly, given that many business analysts also end up designing screens and portions of the user interface, it often makes sense to engage them in usability testing.  Usability testing may be done up front on a lightweight prototype of the application to help the business analyst understand the best way to design the features across screens and how to design the individual screen UIs.  It can also be completed after the final application is delivered to the client.  This way, the results of the usability testing can be used to improve on UI design as future modifications are made.

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Chris Adams
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