What is UAT Testing?
Tags: uat, uattesting
Published: 2021-08-02 10:10:27

User Acceptance Testing is one of the most important software testing types simply because real users are given the responsibility to test the software product. User’s behavior and their overall analysis of the product are given due consideration. User’s feedback is thoroughly worked upon in order to improve the functionality and performance of the product. In this article, you will learn about user acceptance testing. 

What is User Acceptance Testing (UAT)?

This testing method is considered to be the last stage of the software development life cycle. End-users are involved to test the beta version of a product in a real-time environment and then provide their valuable feedback. It is carried out in a separate testing environment where real users will be participating to test the product.

The need for conducting UAT:

User acceptance testing is performed after successfully conducting unit, integration and system testing. Before UAT, the development and testing team have put in efforts and developed the product based on functional specifications and requirements document with the help of project managers and other team members. But, a final product is built for a user or a customer and hence it becomes important to involve end-users or customers to test the software product before launching it in the marketplace.

Following are the prerequisites for performing user acceptance testing:

Proper business requirements must be in place
A fully developed application code is required
Unit testing, integration testing and system testing should be successfully completed
No medium or high defects, showstoppers in <a href="https://www.testingxperts.com/blog/integration-testing">system integration test</a> phase
After performing regression testing, there should be no major defects
The defects that have been reported should be tested and fixed before UAT
For all testing activities, traceability matrix should be completed
The stage must be set for the UAT environment
Finally, get confirmation from the system testing team that the process of UAT can be initiated.



How to perform user acceptance testing? 

Following are the six steps involved to perform UAT:

1. Business requirements must be thoroughly analysed: Identifying and developing test scenarios is one of the most important activities of UAT. These tests can be derived from process flow diagrams, business use cases, project charter, System Requirements Specifications (SRS) and Business Requirements Document (BRD).

2. Develop UAT test plan: The strategy is outlined in the UAT test plan to ensure and verify that an application meets its business requirements. Timelines of testing, test scenarios and test cases approach, entry and exit criteria for <a href="https://www.testingxperts.com/blog/uat-testing">UAT</a> are documented.

3. Test scenarios and test cases need to be identified: The test scenarios need to be identified with respect to high-level business processes and test cases are created with clear test steps. Most of the UAT scenarios should be covered by test cases.

4. Test data preparation: Live data can prove to be useful. Scrambled data should be used for security and privacy reasons. Database flow should be known to the tester.

5. Analyse the results: Test cases should be executed and bugs must be identified. After fixing the bugs, re-test bugs. All the findings pertaining to testing activities must be written in a report and then analyse how the testing activity has fared.

6. Consider the deliverables: Deliverables for UAT are Test cases, Test plans, UAT scenarios, Test results and Defect log.