User Acceptance Testing: what is it, and how to do it right in 2023?

Make sure every member understands the roles, procedures, and responsibilities. Test scripts often contain a sequence of specific steps to take or they give exact instructions on what testers should do, as well as describe expected results. For example, a script can suggest clicking the “Ok” button that has to be followed by a confirmation popup.

You can also utilize social media, crowdsourcing platforms, and other sites to reach out to the intended audience for user acceptance testing and build a team as per your requirements. During the contract agreement, the developer team defines each of the specified criteria and also the specifications to be met for the acceptance of the product. While contract acceptance testing is a widely adopted user acceptance testing process, it is mainly suitable for contract-based product development.

What is acceptance testing?

Launching poorly tested products results in the piling up of tech debt, low user retention rates, and high maintenance costs. https://globalcloudteam.com/ determines whether a software system meets the requirements of the customer or user. Non-functional acceptance criteria define the quality of a system or component.

• It ensures that a system is working as intended before it is deployed.
• When it comes to Azure DevOps and Jira Agile projects, TestMonitor’s milestones can be deployed to plan tests at the end of every sprint.
• The quality of the software, which we delivered to customers, is not appropriate, and the development and testing both are not correctly done.
• Finally, test runs should be able to be customized so that a user can duplicate any runs with a single click.
• You need to check if the product delivers what it was designed to do.

User https://globalcloudteam.com/glossary/acceptance-testing/ consists of a process of verifying that a solution works for the user. It is not system testing but rather ensures that the solution will work for the user (i.e. tests that the user accepts the solution); software vendors often refer to this as “Beta testing”. User acceptance test criteria are usually created by business customers and expressed in a business domain language. These are high-level tests to verify the completeness of a user story or stories ‘played’ during any sprint/iteration. However, both tests are used to validate software quality by testing on end-users and to uncover bugs that may have gone undetected in previous rounds of testing.

Training for a Team

QA activities precede UAT but both are essential parts of the development process. Writing and maintaining acceptance tests is not a trivial thing, but it’s an investment that will repay itself many times over throughout the project. Unlike unit tests, which can run piecemeal, acceptance tests must test the system as a whole. You have to start the application in a production-like environment and interact with it in the same way a user would.

Relationships can be automatically adjusted and connect to test runs, test results, and issues. No planning process would be complete without a time of questioning. Not all questions are equally important, but they should still be asked along the way. This process will include defining the team—not only the makeup but the roles involved—as well as choosing the right tools .

Other types of Testing

The client or the end user would perform the User Acceptance Testing before they move on to the software application’s production environment. User acceptance testing is also known as end-user testing, where the client or user would perform website testing or mobile app testing. To make the most out of user acceptance testing, you must adopt UAT best practices. Below are some that can help you build better products and quickly align with your business goals. Besides, user acceptance testing helps launch a highly user-centric product, which results in a higher customer retention rate, lifecycle values, and satisfaction rate.

Here, you document your testing strategy, rules, test scenarios/cases, standards, etc. The following sections describe the documentation for user acceptance testing. The overview of these requirements will tell you exactly what you should test, whether the implemented solutions work for the users and solve problems for the business. Functional requirements can be translated into test cases, considering the success criteria of business requirements.

The Complete Guide to Next-Level User Acceptance Testing

In that sense, UAT ensures that the purpose of every piece of software is fulfilled before going to production. This will enable you to spot any bugs so that they may be fixed before releasing the product to all your users. During UAT, you can run all the tests that you want as long as they involve business users. A user acceptance test is a type of testing run during UAT execution.

The main purpose of this test is to evaluate the system’s compliance with the business requirements and verify if it is has met the required criteria for delivery to end users. A QA team conducts acceptance tests to ensure the software or app matches business requirements and end-user needs. A fail suggests that there is a flaw present, and the software should not go into production. Acceptance testing is a quality assurance process that determines to what degree an application meets end users’ approval.

PRODUCT

Improving customer experience is one of the ultimate goals for any product, and user acceptance testing can help you achieve that. As a result, the customer experience gets improved manifold once the final product is launched. Furthermore, you need to train the developers about when to take actions to fix errors or issues or upgrade your product as per the feedback obtained from the acceptance testing group. Also, don’t forget to facilitate proper communication among the intended teams to ensure the successful execution of testing as well as development. This makes acceptance testing unique versus other types of software tests, which tend to prioritize ironing out potential bugs and errors internally. Of course, there are specific instruments on the market that are designed for end-user testing.

It ensures that the software build still corresponds to the initial requirements/contract scope, even after changes brought by user acceptance. FitNesse is an open source, wiki-powered framework for acceptance test automation. It allows all stakeholders to easily create, edit, and run tests, leaving early feedback. Users enter specially formatted inputs to automatically generate tests that are immediately run by the system. Then the output is returned and highlighted depending on whether it matches the expected result or not.

Real Device Browser Testing

User acceptance testing is the safeguard against unfinished, ineffective, or faulty software products before go-live. Well-designed, high-quality UAT tests are thorough and reflect user requirements accurately, identifying problems that would go unnoticed in integration or unit tests. Finally, UAT tests provide a macro-level overview of the system’s completion.