User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is the final pre-release phase in a business application lifecycle, typically performed by an end-user or customer to validate/accept a software system before moving an application to a production environment. In most cases, UAT is performed in the final phase of testing after performing functional, integration, and system testing.
The primary focus of user acceptance testing is to validate the end-to-end user business flow. UAT testing does not focus on spelling errors, cosmetic bugs, or system testing. On the contrary, it ensures that the new features and enhancements in the application support all the business requirements. UAT testing is performed in a separate test environment with a data setup similar to production.
The need for User Acceptance Testing?
Once the software has gone through the unit, integration, and system testing, the need for acceptance testing may seem repetitious. However, acceptance testing is essential because:
- Programmers code software based on a software requirements specification document, which is their "own" understanding of the requirements and may not match with the client's software needs.
- Changes in requirements during the project course cannot be effectively communicated to developers.
What other Reads?
Prerequisites for user acceptance testing:
The following are the entry criteria for user acceptance testing:
- All the business requirements must be available with the tester.
- Application code must be completely developed
- Unit testing, integration testing, and system testing must be already performed.
- No Showstoppers, High, Medium defects in system integration testing phase.
- UAT Environment must be ready
- Sign a letter or message from the System Testing Team that the system is ready to perform UAT
How to perform UAT testing?
User acceptance testing is performed by the intended users of the software or system. This type of software testing is usually performed on a client computer, which is known as beta testing. Once the entry criteria for UAT are completed, testers need to complete the following tasks:
- Business requirements analysis
- Create a UAT Test Plan
- Define Test Scenarios
- Creating UAT Test Cases
- Preparing test data (production as data)
- Run Test Cases
- Write down the results
- Confirm business goals
User Acceptance testing exit criteria
Before getting into production, consider the following:
- Critical defects are not open
- All the business process is working satisfactorily
- User acceptance testing meeting with all stakeholders
Best practices for UAT
For user acceptance testing to be successful it is necessary to consider the following points:
- Develop a UAT plan early in the project lifecycle
- Prepare a checklist before the starting user acceptance testing
- Perform a Pre-UAT session during the system testing phase itself
- Set an expectation and clearly define the scope of UAT
- Test end-to-end business process and avoid system tests
- Test your system or application with real scenarios and data
- Think like an unknown system user
- Perform usability testing
- Perform a feedback session and meeting before moving on to production
About the Company:
At Opkey, thanks to our automation and fastest adoption time on the market, we empower the world's largest enterprises to keep pace with release schedules, reduce risk and ensure business continuity. With support for over 100+ technologies and 14+ enterprise applications, Opkey offers resilient test automation for any use case.
