We’ve all witnessed a similar story. A company invests months of resources, overtime work, and budget into the creation of new software. Developers are self-assured. The code is error-free and compiles successfully. System integration tests go perfectly. Then the day of the release comes.
Before long support tickets start piling up. Users are annoyed. The new process doesn’t facilitate their jobs in practice. Some essential buttons are even off-screen with certain devices. The product works technically, but it fails practically.
This situation is the ultimate nightmare for a project manager, yet it can be avoided entirely. Thus, the missing link is often not better coding or faster servers but an extremely thorough testing phase referred to as User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
However, what exactly does UAT mean, and why is it the difference between a successful launch and a public relations fiasco? Put simply, UAT is the last stage of the software testing process where real users of the software test the system in actual use cases in order to confirm it can perform the tasks required of it.
UAT acts as a mediator between the developer’s technical interpretation of the requirements and the user’s real needs. It makes sure that software not only amends code properly, but also works for users on a day-to-day basis.
We will unpack what user acceptance testing is, why it is a must-have for software quality, the five key stages of the process, and examples of UAT coming to the rescue in the real world.
What Is the Precise UAT Meaning?
To understand the value of this phase completely, first, we must clear up the specific UAT meaning in the context of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). It is very easy to mix up UAT with other types of testing but be aware it is different.
The Real Nature of UAT
Directly comparing UAT with System Integration Testing (SIT) or Unit Testing is a mistake since these three are done for different reasons.
- Unit Testing refers to the activities of developers. They verify the functioning of a single line or a block of code.
- System Integration Testing (SIT) makes sure that different modules of software communicate correctly (e.g., payment gateway triggers the inventory system?).
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT) confirms whether the business logic is reasonable.
While a software developer might be testing to determine if the software crashes when a user hits the submit button, a UAT tester is checking whether hitting the submit button indeed results in the order being processed in a way which is aligned with the company’s accounting rules. UAT revolves around the validity and usability of the software rather than merely its technical stability.
The “User” in User Acceptance Testing
A crucial aspect of this testing phase is the “User.”
For UAT to make a difference, it is not just the developers or the QA engineers who can run it. Developers usually have tunnel vision – they understand how the software should work because they built it.
UAT, on the other hand, needs to incorporate the input of the end-users – the accountants, warehouse managers, customers, or administrative staff who will inherently be involved with the software. They bring new perspectives and, most importantly, specific domain knowledge that developers normally lack. They know shortcuts, rare cases, and the daily quirks of their work routine.
Why “Acceptance” is Important
“Acceptance” is the term of legitimacy in the world of software.
A completed UAT will be followed by a formal sign-off. This is the go-ahead for the product indicating that it is ready to be deployed.
Stakeholders are essentially agreeing to “Yes, this software fulfills our requirements, and we accept it for deployment.” Without acceptance, going live is a gamble.
Reasons Why UAT Is Non-Negotiable for Software Quality
Assuming you can skip UAT simply to save time, you would be mistaken. The paradox of this is that it often ends in a situation where the released product is so problematic that its immediate patching costs a fortune. Establishing a well-defined UAT process is vital for the following reasons.
Achieving Business Objectives
It is possible to interpret writing a software requirement document in many manners. Let’s consider the example of a requirement statement which says, “the system must allow for customer refunds.” A developer might create a refund feature that functions perfectly but could take ten minutes to complete and, on top of that, it requires a manager’s approval for every dollar.
The business case, however, might be that the employees in customer service should be able to grant refunds in less than thirty seconds.
Therefore, technical testing would give the developer’s version a pass, but UAT would not. The upshot is that UAT ensures that the software truly addresses the business problem it was designed to solve.
Saving Brand Reputation
Internet users are short on patience when it comes to faulty software. It doesn’t matter whether it is an employee tool or a customer app, a buggy release will damage trust.
If an internal tool fails, employees’ morale drops, and productivity declines. If a customer app fails, they will post negative reviews and change to competitors. By doing UAT, one is actually putting up a protective network, whereby the pain points that can potentially ruin the overall user experience are identified long before the users find out about them.
Cost Efficiency
According to a well-accepted principle in software development, the financial impact of correcting a defect depends significantly on the time when the defect is discovered and fixed.
- Catching and fixing a bug while Requirements are being written: $100
- Catching and fixing a bug while Coding is being done: $1,000
- Catching and fixing a bug after the product has been launched: $10,000 or more
Based on research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the cost of correcting defects after the release of the product can swiftly rise to a hundredfold compared to when the same defects are fixed during the design stage. Therefore, by putting money into UAT, companies spot problems while they are still relatively inexpensive to fix.
User Satisfaction
User satisfaction is essentially a subjective measure of quality. A software product with zero defects might earn the users’ hatred if the font is too small, the colors are not harmonious, or the navigation is confusing. The UAT meaning includes usability. During this phase, the issues of “awkward” interfaces occur and get solved, which guarantees the fact that the final product will be straightforward and nice to use.
The Five Steps of the UAT Process
Knowing the UAT meaning is just a start; putting it into practice is next. Usually, a successful UAT cycle follows the pattern of these five steps.
Phase 1: Planning and Strategy
Before the actual system usage, a plan must be in place defining Entry and Exit Criteria. Entry Criteria tell what must be done before starting UAT, such as completed coding and passed integration tests, and Exit Criteria means what must be achieved to stop testing, such as zero critical bugs.
At this time, you also decide who the testers will be. Will they be super users? Or just beta customers? Besides, you also need to determine what kind of data they will use.
Phase 2: Designing Test Cases
Testing should not be clicking randomly.
UAT needs well-organized test cases that trace real-world situations. A test case for UAT will not be “perform login,” but rather, “get logged in as a regional manager, approve the Q3 budget request, and check if the finance department is notified by an email.”
Such scenarios are expected to include regular tasks as well as complex or rare ones (for example, performing an end-of-year report).
Phase 3: Execution
Usually called the working part, this period is also when users “put UAT meaning into practice” by running the software in a way that is highly similar to the production environment. Besides following test cases, users should also be encouraged to do “exploratory testing”—they try to break the system by unexpected things, which often uncovers the most hidden bugs.
Phase 4: Bug Reporting and Resolution
When it comes to identifying bugs users must be “vivid” in their reports. Saying something like “it didn’t work” over email is not going to help anyone.
What the user did, what he/she expected to happen, and what actually did happen should be the main points of a bug report.
After this, the developers prioritize these bugs based on severity. Critical “show-stoppers” must be fixed immediately. APiece of the software that looks perfect but does not work on the most commonly used phone models (e.g., Xiaomi, Samsung, Huawei) would be among the most severest issues. Non-urgent and low-impact bugs can be scheduled for future releases. Once the bug is corrected, the respective user must “re-test” it to verify that the fix actually works.
Phase 5: Sign-off
After the testing period is done and the Exit Criteria are successfully met, the key people give their formal consent. Their authorization signifies a formal agreement that the software is ready for live use.
Different Approaches to UAT in Agile vs. Waterfall
The manner in which UAT is done relies heavily on the type of project management methodology that is being used.
Waterfall UAT
The sequential steps, usually known as the Waterfall model, are gathering requirements, designing, coding, and testing. Here, UAT is a completely separate phase, often an elongated stage, and happens just in time for a product release.
The problem with this approach is that a discovery of misinterpreted requirements during UAT means the last chance for the major changes. Hence launch delays are inevitable along with budget increases.
Agile UAT
With the want of the Agile method, the concept of software production style undergoes a change.
The difference is that software is created in brief iterations, which are called sprints. Here, the UAT concept gets tweaked slightly. UAT is usually present in each, or at least, every few sprints.
Users get a chance to test the new versions quite regularly. For example, Week 2 might be dedicated to testing only the “search function”, while Week 4 is the testing of the “checkout function”. Rapid response is thus facilitated. If a feature is inadequate, it will be rectified by the next sprint. This way of working repeatedly and incrementally is closely linked to the principles of Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), for it exemplifies a continuous effort to being user-focused and dependable.
Common Problems with UAT
Sometimes UAT faces problems that a little bit of gritting also cannot solve. Here are a few stumbling blocks of UAT and ways out.
Problem: Lack of Users
Users are always busy with their regular jobs. Therefore a warehouse manager cannot just cease shipping boxes for software testing purposes for a whole week.
- Fix: Book well your UAT spot. Split testing into little pieces that are easy to manage (for instance, one hour per testing session). Reward testers for their effort.
Problem: Insufficient Test Data
Trying out a system wherein the database holds entities named “Test Customer 1” and “Test Product A” hardly ever reveals complicated problems.
- Fix: use anonymized production data still your test data can be recognized and useful, so you give the developers very realistic samples to work with and the testers very real scenarios to check
Problem: “It Works on My Machine”
A developer says that the code is fine on his/her powerful laptop, but it crashes on a three-year-old user’s tablet.
- Fix: Make sure that the UAT environment is the same as the production environment. If users are going to access your app on iPads via 4G, then you should be testing on iPads via 4G as well.
Problem: Unspecific Requirements
If users don’t understand what “success” is, they can’t test properly.
- Adequate: Provide an “Expected Result” for every test case. Users shouldn’t have to guess if a calculation is right; the test case should show them the exact figure.
Real-World Success Stories: UAT Done Right
Real-life scenarios can help us understand the essence of UAT even better.
Case Study 1: The eCommerce Saver
A middle-market retail brand was preparing a new app for a product launch. The single-item purchase functionality worked perfectly during developer testing. However, during user acceptance testing, a loyal customer (also a beta tester) tried to purchase 12 different items at once – a typical behavior of the wholesale clients.
The app would shut down every time the cart was over 10 items. Since this issue was detected during UAT, developers were able to resolve the problem of memory allocation in only two days. Had it unrolled, the retailer would have missed their highest-value orders on day one of the launch, thus losing thousands in sales.
Case Study 2: The Healthcare UI Overhaul
A healthcare organization provided a patient portal for accessing test results. The interface was trendy and elegant. Nevertheless, the patients, particularly the elderly ones, formed the UAT group. Therefore it was a surprise to no one when all of a sudden everyone started complaining about the light grey lettering on a white background being illegible. The navigation too was a problem, most could not figure out how to get to the menu. Before the revamp, the portal would have gone live and been pretty much useless for the very people it was designed for.
Final Thoughts
Learning how to work with UAT is of utmost importance for almost all those in the software business. This phase should not be regarded merely as a tick in a box or a red-tape step to be crossed out.
On the contrary, it’s the final line of defense against failure.
UAT ensures that the software doesn’t just work theoretically but also functions perfectly in practice. It aligns the code with the business objectives, saves the brand from embarrassing bugs, and the end-user gets a feeling of being listened to and appreciated.
Before you even start your next software project, try asking yourself a few questions:
Are you involving your users early enough? Are you setting aside enough time and giving them the data necessary to break the system before your customers find the faults?
Should you be planning to refine your release strategy, give your testing procedures a thorough check. A comprehensive UAT phase is a great insurance your software project can have.
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Meta descriptionWhat does the real UAT mean? Find out why User Acceptance Testing is a must phase for releasing successful, bug-free software which end-users love.
