Every time new software is released, it goes through UAT deployment or beta testing. It is one of the most important stages of software development and essential for end-user approval.
User Acceptance Testing (also called beta testing) is the last stage of the software development lifecycle before moving into production. UAT testing helps validate software modifications made against the original requirements. This testing is done from the customer's point of view and is used to resolve performance, implementation, and design issues.
UAT testing helps check business flow issues and allows developers to accurately verify user requirements. These tests are important to detect problems that were not identified through unit, integration, and function tests. Additionally, it helps eliminate bugs due to communication issues.
According to a recent report, the software testing market exceeded $40 billion in 2020 . UAT is one of the key parts of a successful software testing campaign and meeting testing objectives.
Functional experts and end-stage product users perform UAT testing. This is done to ensure that the end result incorporates information from a functional point of view along with the business user perspective.
UAT deployment steps
For successful UAT testing, there are some steps you need to follow.
1. Planning
The first step of UAT is planning. Here, the testing team defines the testing criteria. You also need to gather prerequisites such as enterprise data system specifications, results from other testing stages, intended test results, and site availability.
This information is necessary to create a comprehensive test. To do this, you need to collaborate with process owners, functional leaders, and product managers.
2. Scope and Design
You need to take a look at the project scope and design the tests accordingly. This step is important because projects can grow quickly and all business processes may not require testing.
Once you define the scope of the project, you can start mapping out the test design. This involves defining project timelines and milestones, defining the environment, and assigning tasks to project resources. Different test tips will contribute to this objective.
3. Run the test
Using the collected data, you can run the test and document your results. You need to verify that business requirements are met and analyze any potential risks. Finally, you can also perform defect analysis and see if any changes need to be made to the system. These tickets are then routed back to the development team.
If the results appear satisfactory, you can authorize the software to be deployed into production. However, you may need to modify the code documentation for active projects.
Advantages of implementing UAT
Although it is a time-consuming process, UAT helps improve the overall acceptance rate and quality of newly created software products/features. It plays a crucial role in verifying whether a solution can satisfy business operations and meet end-user cases. It also helps determine the ROI of the project.
UAT helps identify usability issues and broken features . This helps reduce maintenance and product recall costs . It's much cheaper and faster to fix things after UAT than to fix them after they're deployed to production. This increases the usability and robustness of a product and helps gather end-user responses. You can use these responses for subsequent development iterations.
Although most companies today prefer to automate their testing, most testers believe that at least one manual test is necessary before the code is sent to production. Because UAT focuses primarily on collective testing, it addresses an important requirement of software testing methodology: a human perspective. Without UAT, customers may encounter incomplete changes and issues.
The best UAT deployment tools you can use
Once you start testing, you need a way to monitor your work and ensure you're moving in the right direction. UAT testing tools help outline the requirements for a project and ensure that your tests are categorically marked and documented.
Here are some of the tools you can use to perform UAT.
1. Test Monitor
This tool allows you to consolidate risks and requirements into groups. You can sort requirements by preference and prioritize risks according to their impacts. It manages your tests in one place and allows you to run multiple test cases at the same time.
It also has a simple user interface and you can easily start the test execution. Additionally, you can generate extensive reports to gain insights into projects. They help you understand the project’s growth along with its strengths and weaknesses.
2. JIRA
Jira's Kanban board lets you tag issues and list them in workflows. It also allows you to analyze and filter results and issues based on risks and requirements.
You can assign tasks to different users and share your test results. This tool can also generate workload and progress reports, as well as provide issue trackers.
3. qTest
qTest is a test management tool that allows you to track and organize tests. It also helps you create test-driven workflows for your projects.
It has a DevOps feature called pulse that you can use to automate tests and their communication. You can generate business insights through its analytics engine and schedule meetings for specific issues. You can also use it for manual exploratory testing.
UAT for enterprises
UAT is one of the main steps in the quality control process. It helps meet business objectives, fix defects, and improve user acceptance statistics. If you do not perform this test, you risk loss of capital and damage to your company's reputation.
There are many tools on the market that you can use for UAT testing. Choose the one that meets your business requirements and helps you create a better product. Remember that independent testing by beta users is always better than testing by developers. It helps bridge the gap between software development and usage.
