7 User Acceptance Testing Best Practices in 2024

 


User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is a critical phase in software development where the end-users validate the functionality and usability of the application. 

Following best practices ensures a successful UAT process. Here are 7 best practices for UAT in 2024:

1. Involve End Users Early and Frequently

  • Why: Involving end users from the planning stages ensures that their expectations are clear. Regular feedback loops with actual users help identify usability issues and discrepancies in the functionality.
  • Best Practice: Start engaging key users as soon as the design phase and involve them at critical points, not just in the testing phase.

2. Clear and Comprehensive UAT Test Plan

  • Why: A well-structured UAT test plan helps testers understand the scope, objectives, and critical areas that need to be validated. This also ensures coverage of all relevant scenarios.
  • Best Practice: Define clear entry and exit criteria, expected outcomes, timelines, and scope. Include both functional and non-functional testing objectives.

3. Define Realistic Test Scenarios

  • Why: UAT should simulate real-world usage. If scenarios do not mimic how users will interact with the software in production, the testing might miss critical issues.
  • Best Practice: Develop test cases that reflect actual business processes and day-to-day operations. Incorporate edge cases and uncommon scenarios to ensure robustness.

4. Ensure Cross-functional Team Collaboration

  • Why: Collaboration between developers, testers, business analysts, and users during UAT reduces miscommunications and helps in faster resolution of issues.
  • Best Practice: Establish communication channels and encourage open collaboration. Use shared tools to track issues and updates in real time.

5. Automate Where Possible

  • Why: While UAT is primarily a manual process driven by user experience, certain repetitive tasks such as data setup, validation, or regression testing can benefit from automation.
  • Best Practice: Identify areas that can be automated, such as data entry, report generation, or repetitive functional tests, to reduce manual effort and speed up testing.

6. Emphasize Usability and Accessibility

  • Why: Beyond functional correctness, UAT is about ensuring that the application is user-friendly and accessible to all potential users, including those with disabilities.
  • Best Practice: Incorporate usability and accessibility testing into the UAT process. Use tools and user feedback to validate that the product meets usability standards (e.g., WCAG for accessibility).

7. Provide Thorough User Training and Documentation

  • Why: Users should be well-informed about how to perform UAT effectively. Adequate training and documentation help users understand both the system and testing requirements.
  • Best Practice: Conduct training sessions and provide documentation or guides to help users understand the application and the testing process, focusing on how to document issues and provide valuable feedback.

Implementing these best practices in UAT helps ensure that the final product aligns with user expectations, reduces post-launch issues, and enhances overall user satisfaction.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

4 reasons why User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is crucial even after go-live

  Unfortunately, UAT is frequently the portion of an implementation project that slides the maximum, as a result of lack of resource accessibility. The end users who are required to perform UAT tend to already be extended to the limit conducting their organisation and can't afford the opportunity to test new applications. When the project goes, the matter is exasperated, since the project team generally goes back to their day jobs and contractors are introduced. Nevertheless, UAT is vital not just to the effective installation of any new small business software or application enhancement but in addition to ensuring organisational efficiency and success. It mitigates risk, raises the ROI of the program, and makes certain that your organization's customers don't wind up being user acceptance testers by default. User acceptance testing is often regarded as a one-off at the end of an Implementation undertaking. That is where businesses are mistaken. UAT extends outside of y...
Read more

How is UAT performed?

Image
What is UAT? User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is a type of testing performed by the end user or the client to verify/accept the software system before moving the software application to the production environment. UAT is done in the final phase of testing after functional, integration and system testing is done. How to do UAT Testing UAT is done by the intended users of the system or software. This type of Software Testing usually happens at the client location which is known as Beta Testing. Once Entry criteria for UAT are satisfied. Following are the tasks need to be performed by the testers: Analysis of Business Requirements Creation of UAT test plan Identify Test Scenarios Create UAT Test Cases Preparation of Test Data(Production like Data) Run the Test cases Record the Results Confirm business objectives UAT Tester should possess good knowledge of the business. He should be independent and think as an unknown user to the system. Tester should be Analytical and Lateral thinker and co...
Read more

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) in Agile Practices

Businesses are continuously striving to achieve software products that are stable and deliver a seamless experience to the customer. To achieve this goal enterprise adopts various software testing practices and methodologies.  User Acceptance Testing under an agile environment ensures the delivery of a more stable and reliable product to customers which not only meets their business requirements but also provides great UX.  What is UAT? UAT is a type of software testing method where the product owner or customer verifies that the output of the project or software build meets the business requirements or not. It follows the waterfall model where UAT is conducted in the last stage of the software testing life cycle.  What is UAT in agile practices? UAT in agile is a much better way of conducting the test as it is more timely and rigorous as compared to traditional UAT. UAT in agile begins with developing user stories, reviewing sprints, and finally UAT sprints at end of the...
Read more