Quality and requirements
What are acceptance criteria? Definition and examples
Also: AC
In short
Acceptance criteria are testable conditions a piece of work must meet to count as done. They describe the result from the user's point of view, not the way to get there. Good criteria are concrete enough that a person and an AI agent understand them the same way.
Why it matters: Clear acceptance criteria stop everyone saying “done” and meaning something different.
Why does Acceptance criteria matter for your company?
Without acceptance criteria, only the sign-off decides what was actually meant. By then the work is done, and every correction costs time and trust. Testable criteria settle this beforehand, for the business side, engineering and testing.
With AI agents this matters even more. An agent builds exactly what is written and fills gaps with assumptions. Acceptance criteria are therefore also the bar against which you check whether an agent has done the job.
Example: A customer portal should show invoices
The requirement reads: “Customers see their invoices in the portal.” The team delivers a list of the last ten invoices. The business side expected all invoices since the start of the contract, as PDF and filterable by year.
With acceptance criteria this would have been clear beforehand: “All invoices since the start of the contract are visible”, “Every invoice can be downloaded as PDF”, “The list can be filtered by year”. Each criterion can be checked with yes or no, by a person or a test.
3 common mistakes to avoid
Describing the how instead of the result
“Button top right” is a design instruction. A criterion describes what the person can do afterwards.
Untestable words
“Fast”, “simple” or “intuitive” cannot be tested. Name measurable conditions.
Writing criteria after the work
Criteria written afterwards describe what was built, not what was needed.
Step by step
- 1
Start from the result
What can the person do after the change that they could not do before?
- 2
Make them testable
Each criterion can be answered with yes or no.
- 3
Add edge cases
What happens with no data, on errors or without permission?
- 4
Review together before starting
Business, engineering and testing read the criteria before work begins.
Read on in the PM Lab
Articles that go deeper.
Related terms
- Definition of Done →The Definition of Done is a shared checklist every piece of a team's work must meet before it counts as finished.
- Requirement →A requirement describes what a product or system must do and why, from the point of view of those who use it.
- Human in the Loop →Human in the loop means a person reviews and approves an AI process at defined points before it continues.