We’ve taken a closer look at User Acceptance testing over the past few weeks. Over the course of this time, we’ve received many questions about how User Acceptance Testing works.
This is a very special topic for us, too, as our bug tracking and testing software are used by many people and companies to support their User Acceptance Testing efforts.
Today’s blog post will show you how User Acceptance Testing works. From planning to execution and analysis of your UAT efforts.
Let’s get started.
Best practices for User Acceptance Testing
These best practices will help you to understand how user acceptance testing should be conducted. These best practices will not only help you conduct UAT, but they will also ensure that you achieve effective results in all phases of UAT. These are the best practices to make your UAT successful.
- Before you start your project, make sure that you have a UAT plan in place.
- Before you start UAT, create a list of conditions and prerequisites.
- Pre-UAT sessions are recommended for system testing.
- In a clear and concise way, define the UAT scope.
- Do not perform system tests. Instead, evaluate the end-to-end flow of your business.
- Use real-world scenarios and user roles to test your product, app, or system.
- You should conduct usability testing
- Before you proceed to production, hold a feedback meeting
How to conduct UAT
Conducting a user acceptance testing (UAT), is primarily done to show that the project meets its goals and objectives. You can learn how to conduct user acceptance testing. It’s not a way to identify bugs or errors in code. This is UAT 101 for beginners. Let’s now take a look at the different UAT phases and explain how user acceptance testing should be done.
To define test criteria, customers and users should be involved
When discussing the scope and expectations for UAT, ensure that both you and your end user are in agreement. You will need to create scenarios and accept conditions for this exercise.
You will need to create a test environment, which can be either remote or in-house. You will also need to define test procedures for evaluating and assessing the conditions.
Communicate Any Shortcomings/Bottlenecks
After you have completed the user acceptance testing, you’ll find out which conditions are being met. You may also discover bugs or weaknesses. This will enable you to create a mitigation plan, and notify your users when the issues will be resolved.
Continue user acceptance testing
Once the conditions have been met and the issues have been fixed, users can test the system using your predetermined strategy. Continue testing until you have resolved all issues and kinks.
Ask users to sign off
Once you have completed UAT, get customers and users to sign off on UAT. This will confirm that your project has been accepted and completed.
UAT Environment Setup
You can create a UAT environment to allow developers to test new functionality and features. This will ensure compliance with all regulations, policies, and standards. Administrators are allowed to connect to the UAT environment whenever there are new features to be tested. This makes sure that UAT is standardized.
Speak Human. You are addressing feedback as a human being. Use the language your users use.
Here are 5 steps to improve your UAT workflow. Here’s how it works.
It is difficult to test user acceptance. This is what most people think. From creating a UAT strategy to testing your cases and analysing them, There are many departments and people involved.
Worst of all, UAT occurs at the end or beginning of a project.
Your development team has completed their tasks. Now your QA agents will start testing the application.
They have one job: To test if your application works for users.
These are the steps I will guide you through:
- Plan
- Execution
- Documentation
- Evaluation
- Reporting & Lessons Learned
Plan
It is essential to plan your User Acceptance Testing efforts. UAT is not possible without proper planning. These are the areas you should consider when planning your User Acceptance Testings.
Time management Planning
As a first step, clarify some fundamental questions. It is necessary to gather information about your UAT schedule, your QA agents, and your testers.
To create a realistic UAT plan, ensure that you have all the information in one place. And, most importantly, create a plan for how your testing groups should look.
Staff needs
It is important to determine who will be involved in UAT yUAT execution and ensure that everyone knows their responsibilities.
Everyone involved in UAT should be able to clearly understand their responsibilities.
When creating your UAT team, ensure that everyone is on the same page. Set clear communication guidelines and prepare your target audiences for the test case.
Communication & Issue Strategy
You must ensure that you have a User Acceptance Testing process in place for bugs and other issues when you are executing the UAT test cases.
- How will you document problems?
- What can testers do to communicate their problems?
UAT checklist
I recommend using a User Acceptance Test checklist before you start to execute test cases. This will help you stay focused and organize your tasks.
We’ve created this User acceptance testing workflow template based on our UAT experience. The checklist is free to download and view.
2. Execution
There are a few options available for you to execute your UAT test cases. Your testers (= potential users), will now evaluate and test your application in relation to certain scenarios.
You can’t meet testers in person if you offer a global product to different markets.
You can conduct the test cases in one-to-one sessions using Skype or any other video-calling software. You will be able to gain valuable quantitative and even more importantly qualitative data from your users during the sessions.
You might discover new insights if you run the test cases after the development is complete. You will be able to test your theory about how much knowledge your users have.
3. Documentation
Documenting your User Acceptance Tests should be done simultaneously. I recommend establishing a system that allows you to document all pertinent information without losing any data.
Documentation is important, but clearly defining your responsibilities to ensure the implementation of user feedback is another.
Many of our customers have created NR to accomplish this step. You can record bugs, feedback, or other abnormalities on the browser screen of your user. A simple-to-use project dashboard gives your colleagues a clear overview of the most important issues. Another important thing is to make sure you delegate and assign priority.
4. Evaluation
This phase will assess if all criteria have been tested and are met. And, most importantly, if your testers were able to successfully meet those criteria.
Is there a test case that failed? What were the problems? What can be done to solve these problems? Who is responsible?
Analyzing the quantitative and qualitative data from the beginning is necessary. These questions must be answered:
- What percentage of the cases were completed by testers?
- How was the overall score of these test cases?
- How did each tester feel overall?
- What emotions were experienced during the test cases
Evaluation is quite extensive as each test case must be analysed and placed in context.
5. Reporting & lessons learned
It is easy to believe that reporting and evaluation are one and the same. They are not.
The evaluation phase involves collecting, aggregating, and analysing data. The reporting phase, on the other hand, focuses on the larger picture.
It is important to learn lessons and gain insights that will improve your UAT workflows and test cases. You may also build relationships with your UAT testers in this phase, as they can provide valuable feedback and insight.
UAT is more than a test. It’s a complete cycle.
We can create immense value by solving our most difficult problems.
At the end of software development, when the product is almost “finished”, User Acceptance Testings are conducted regularly. This should not be the case. The more severe the problems become, the more costly they will be.
UAT workflows are possible to be implemented much earlier. UAT is an integral part of a more agile UAT approach. It requires continuous collaboration between all stakeholders and team members.
UAT is an integral part of the development process.
This is a goal to incorporate User Acceptance Tests into every project phase. UAT is no longer a phase. Continuous progress requires continuous testing and feedback cycles to ensure continuous improvement.