Use Case Vs Test Case

Use cases are designed in the requirement and design phase of the SDLC methodology. Use cases are used to explain and document the interaction that is required between the user and the system to accomplish the user’s task. They are created to help the development team understand the steps that are involved in accomplishing the user’s goals.

Once created, use cases can often be used to derive more detailed functional requirements for the new system.

Test cases are derived from the use case and used in the testing phase of the SDLC methodology. It is used to validate whether the AUT under test is working as per requirement or not.

Below are the differences between Use Case and Test Case in tabular format.

Use Case	Test Case
A use case is a graphical representation of actions that describes the behavior of a system to do a particular task	Test Case is a document specifying a set of actions to be performed on the application under test to verify the expected functionality of the feature
To create a use case SRS (System Requirement Specification) is required	To write a test case preconditions, test data and steps are required
It is dependent on the requirement document	It is dependent on the use case
Business Analyst create use case by collecting the requirement	Tester/ QA Analyst create a test case by using use case
End user executes the use case	Testers executes the test case
The purpose of use case is to understand the end-user interaction with the system	The purpose of the test case is to validate whether that particular feature is functioning as expected or not.
The use case focuses on the end user	Test case focuses on the Test result
The result of the use case has not been verified	The result of a test case is verified with the expected result
Use case interacts with the user	Test case interacts with the result
Use case creation can be helpful in the requirement gathering, and design phase	Test case is executed in the testing phase