Is User Acceptance Testing Really Necessary?

One of the goals of a good test is that it meets the expectations of the client/stakeholders and meets the needs of the consumer of the product/software. Knowing this, it’s easy to understand what User Acceptance Testing is.

User Acceptance Testing is pretty much what the name says. To put it simply, User Acceptance Testing or UAT as we will be referring to it in this blog post, is the type of testing that is carried out by the client or the user to determine if the software or product meets their expectation and is accepted by them. It is also known as beta testing or end-user testing.

In the lists of tests to be carried out on a software, it is usually the last test to be done once other tests have been completed and it serves the purpose of ensuring that the software does not go against the requirements of the business.

Users or client perform UAT. These testers could be a group of beta testers or a selected number of in-house members of the organization.

Why Should We Perform User Acceptance Testing?

Throughout the development and testing lifecycle, developers and testers work towards ensuring that software meets the functional expectations stated. Software is then developed and tested according to their domain knowledge. But these people are not the end-users.

It would be a huge bummer to have software that has a lot of amazing features but is rejected by the users because they don’t just find it convenient.

UAT ensures that businesses do not go through this and that they avoid huge losses. Using live data and real use cases from the target market, businesses are able to deal with defects that may cost huge losses later.

UAT is important because it takes into account, the perspective of the end-users. If the users are involved in the testing process early, their input would help in not only cutting losses but also reducing some of the back and forth that happens when a software is released.

What Is the User Acceptance Testing Process?

As with all other tests, UAT has to have planning, design and execution phases. Let’s look into them:

• UAT Test Planning This is almost the same as a regular test plan done in system testing. The ideal way is to plan both the system and UAT tests together. The dates, environment, communication protocols, roles and responsibilities, templates, results and their analysis process, entry-exit criteria are also all found in the UAT test plan.

• User Acceptance Testing Design The gathered acceptance criteria from the users are used in this step. Test cases are not different from our regular system test cases. They are just a subset as we test all of the applications as opposed, just to the key functional areas. The data, templates to record test results, administrative procedures, defect logging mechanism, etc., has to be in place before we move to the next phase.

• Test Execution This testing happens in a conference where the users, PM, QA team representatives all sit together and work through all the acceptance test cases. It can also be done by the QA team by running the test cases on AUT (Application Under Test).

Tools for User Acceptance Testing.

Typically, the type of software tools that are used during this testing phase is similar to the tools used while performing functional testing. These tools include QC, JIRA, etc. These tools can be configured to cumulate data for the User Acceptance phase.

How Does User Acceptance Testing Work In An Agile Environment?

In an agile environment, at the beginning of the project, business users would be the key stakeholders to provide requirement thereby updating the product backlog. During the end of each sprint, business users would participate in the sprint demo and would be available for providing any feedback.

Also, a UAT phase would be planned before the sprint completion where the business users would do their validations.

The feedbacks which are received during sprint demo and sprint UAT, are collated and added back to the product backlog which is constantly reviewed and prioritized. In an agile world, the business users are more close to the project and they evaluate the same for its use more frequently unlike the traditional waterfall projects.

Challenges Of UAT.

1)Test Planning: As with all other tests, it is very important to define the test objectives. Testing should be carried out by prioritizing critical business objectives first. UAT is carried out at the end of the testing cycle. Improper test planning may lead to an overlap between the system testing and UAT. The UAT test plan should be prepared and communicated to the team well before beginning this test. This will help them for test planning, writing test cases & test scripts and creating a UAT environment.

2)Environment and deployment process: A separate production-like environment should be set up for UAT. Once the UAT environment is separated from the test environment, you need to control the release cycle effectively.

3) Unskilled testers or testers without business knowledge: When there is no permanent test team, the company would have to select UAT staff from various internal departments. A non-technical business team might face many technical difficulties in executing the test cases.

Also, assigning testers at the end of the UAT cycle do not add any value to the project. Little time to train the UAT staff can significantly increase the chances of UAT being successful.

4) No Proper Communication Channel: Proper planning and effective communication are important for effective team collaboration. Project teams should use a web-based tool to log defects and questions. This will help to distribute the workload evenly and avoid reporting duplicate issues.

5) Passing on The Blame Game: Building a positive relationship with the business team would definitely help to avoid the blame game. Everyone takes responsibility for their work all hands are on deck.

Conclusion

The best way to find out if your product is acceptable and fit for purpose is to actually put it in front of the users.

UAT is the people’s choice/opinions and since the customer is king, it is a crucial part of the software testing lifecycle and should be carried out carefully.

Business users are getting more involved and the projects are being enhanced and delivered via feedback loops. After all is said and done, the User Acceptance phase is considered as the best way to get into implementation and production.