Software Testing Basics: Ensuring Successful UAT

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) represents the “moment of truth” for any software product. Preceded by functional, system, and regression testing, UAT is the final test run your team performs before the product heads “out the door”—ready for client or public usage. In fact, ensuring a successful UAT is the bedrock of software testing basics.

Designed to validate the end-to-end business flow, UAT flows from production data, creating a “real-world” environment for the tester. Feedback can then be collected to discover if the software product meets the client’s standard and works in the real world.

Before your team engages in a UAT process, it is vital to understand software testing basics, such as:

Proper Planning: The Checklist

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”

― Benjamin Franklin

The foundation of software testing basics for UAT is deeply embedded in proper planning. Your manual software testing tool should employ milestones to denote critical project events: scheduling of sprints, releases, and iterations for test run organization.

By deploying a simple (yet comprehensive) interface built specifically with testers in mind, you can empower them with a personal task list for all planned test runs assigned.

A well-planned UAT project employs a checklist. As such, the checklist provides an organized, concise visual the entire team can rally around. Providing a list of tasks in bite-sized portions helps avoid tester fatigue.

Checklists can be organized in many different formats and styles. However, it is recommended your checklist be divided into three sections: Before testing, During testing, and After testing.

Before-testing tasks will include:

• Proper time investment devoted to robust test case design
• Outcome-based test cases with an actionable end goal
• Inclusion of users in the approval of test cases
• Involvement of users in the planning of the test runs

During-testing tasks include:

• Involvement of product specialists
• Individual testing
• Offering clear instructions about the description of results (include attachments)
• Discussion of tester results afterwards

After-testing tasks include:

• Timely analysis of the reports
• Fact-based conclusions
• Creation of a separate report providing context
• Discussion and sharing of reports with all involved

Documentation

What’s the use of planning the perfect UAT without proper documentation? Your next objective on the road to software testing basics involves documenting relevant findings. This begins with a solid process and includes robust user feedback that should focus on functionality and standardization of the product.

The Right Tool

All the planning and documentation you can possibly output is totally useless unless you are utilizing a next-level manual testing tool. Quality features you should check out will include:

• Ease of use when it comes to handling large amounts of requirements and risks. This is achieved by organizing requirements into groups.
• Classification of requirements by utilizing varied requirement types (while prioritizing risks by assignment of proper classifications).
• Powerful editor functions that empower you to execute test runs at any place, any time with no experience required.
• Easy duplication – your tool should be able to reuse test cases effortlessly with a single click (including all requirements, risks, and applications).
• Progress monitoring – a “rocket-fueled” test monitoring suite should ideally give a bird’s-eye view of all test runs, past and present. Admins should be able to view the progress of each test run and keep track of all active and upcoming test runs, as well as the assigned testers.
• Notifications that keep testers informed of upcoming activities.
• Intuitive screenshot captures that allow users to easily snip, copy, and paste screen shots to the testing tool for review.
• Functionality that allows viewing of all the latest outcomes per test case and test run with powerful filters to view results per milestone, requirement, or other metrics.
• Potent UAT report generation that provides real-time insight into testing status and progress while also tracking team workload with a variety of progress reports.

Process-focused

Mastering software testing basics means controlling time and budgets. No one wins if either is wasted. That’s why the UAT philosophy must be worked into the entire process—not a third, not half, but 100 percent of the process. This avoids more problems cropping up at the last minute. Asking key questions across this UAT journey will keep your team focused on the process.

• Does your process include third-party integration with popular apps such as Jira, Mantis, or Asana?
• Are you leveraging traceability across the process? Can you trace back an issue to a date or person?
• Will the testing tool allow flexibility in managing standard roles? Can the team easily and quickly manage the most critical authorizations?

Obviously, the basics of UAT software testing can become complex if not managed carefully with the proper tools. To guide your team on this exciting new journey, TestMonitor offers a free checklist, How to Plan a Test, available for download today. You can also check out our 14-day free trial.