Acceptance Criteria
Acceptance criteria are the precise conditions, defined before development starts, that determine whether a feature meets the expressed need. They describe the expected functional behavior from the user's point of view, for example: "the user receives a confirmation email within 30 seconds of placing an order."
They're written upfront, usually during scoping or ticket refinement, and act as a contract between the product owner and the engineering team. On an e-commerce project, an acceptance criterion might spell out what should happen when stock hits zero while a customer is checking out. During acceptance testing, the team (or the client) checks each criterion one by one, which makes validation objective instead of based on a general impression.
A common mistake is writing criteria that are too vague, like "search should be fast and intuitive," which can't really be tested in development or acceptance. A good criterion is measurable and testable: a specific response time, an exact error message, a defined behavior for each edge case. It's also worth avoiding locking down criteria too early on features that are still uncertain, which just piles up outdated criteria before development even starts.
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