Should QA test from a strictly black-box perspective?

Question

Assuming that unit tests are handled by development, is there any reason for QA to have knowledge of the details of how a product works? By which I mean, do they need to kn

Answer 1

I think it depends on the role that your QA team plays on a given project. I think you can make an argument that situations that arise from specific values being present in the database should be represented by test cases, and if they can be represented in that way, then developers should write (should have written) unit tests for those situations.

If you've also used code inspections to identify and fix defects, it may not be necessary to expose QA to anything behind the scenes. I suppose there are projects where it might be helpful for them to test code outside the user experience, but I would probably use a QA team for black-box testing rather than white- or clear-box testing.