User Acceptance Testing
User Acceptance Testing is the step testers usually take after they are done with all the other type of testing like regression, system, functional, etc. UAT is the process of validation of your solution against business requirements. One requires end users to get familiar to requirements to perform UAT. Alpha, beta, etc. testing are kinds of UAT. Hence this is the last step of testing you will be performing before the actual release. You will require to pay as much effort and attention to it as possible as, basically, this is your last chance to make improvements.
Involve end users to UAT for precise results. Make sure you have different groups of beta testers with different interests, skills and goals.
The Challenges You'll Face:
- Environment and Deployment: If UAT tests is taking place in the very same environment where your functional tests were done, then there are chances you’ll miss quite a lot. Performance testing environment won't do as well, hence consider creating something separate for UAT. After all that is done, you are left with a task of controlling the release cycle. Make sure you are testing appropriate software versions rather than wasting valuable time on something that is still under development or testing an older version of your app.
- Planning: This is considered to be a big pain to most of us. Acceptance testing is to be carefully planned while the design phase and requirements analysis are being done. You will not be able to determine appropriate objectives when UAT phase has already started. Know what you are expecting from the app and plan tests accordingly. Also determine what priorities are based on business goals and pay extra attention to them from the very beginning. As noted above you will be performing UAT in the very end, end in the context when time and resources are of curtail value thus you are to be prepared in advance. Be prepared to users finding many unexpected defects that are to be fixed before release as users will be dealing with 100% UI and that was not available earlier. Plan some extra time for such defect elimination in advance so you are not getting off schedule with your release.
- Need High Skilled Testers: One common mistake here would be forcing your functional test teams to perform UAT. Users are not testers and will look at the app under a different angle. The amount to locate defects will be devastating. Second mistake to be considered is actually hiring unskilled UAT testers, meaning untrained for your requirements. Take time to properly train your UAT team and you won’t regret it. The third shared mistake is a communication channel, you can’t communicate through. Creation of a proper communication channel is a task of high priority. Email is a pain with offshore teams. Fixes might get delayed due to tiny ambiguity. Think things twice when planning a common channel with your testers and you will not regret this decision.
All the best on the go..
