USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING
In engineering and its various subdisciplines, acceptance testing is black-box testing performed on a system (e.g. software, lots of manufactured mechanical parts, or batches of chemical products) prior to its delivery. In some engineering subdisciplines, it is known as Functional testing, black-box testing, release acceptance, QA testing, application testing, confidence testing, final testing, validation testing, usability testing, or factory acceptance testing.
In most environments, acceptance testing by the system provider is distinguished from acceptance testing by the customer (the user or client) prior to accepting transfer of ownership. In such environments, acceptance testing performed by the customer is known as beta testing, user acceptance testing (UAT), end user testing, site (acceptance) testing, or field (acceptance) testing.
In this type of testing, the software is handed over to the user in order to find out if the software meets the user expectations and works as it is expected to. In software development, user acceptance testing (UAT) - also called beta testing, application testing, and end user testing - is a phase of software development in which the software is tested in the "real world" by the intended audience. UAT can be done by in-house testing in which volunteers or paid test subjects use the software or, more typically for widely-distributed software, by making the test version available for downloading and free trial over the Web. The experiences of the early users are forwarded back to the developers who make final changes before releasing the software commercially.
User Acceptance Testing - Prerequisites:
Before the User Acceptance testing can be done the application is fully developed.
Various levels of testing (Unit, Integration and System) are already completed before User Acceptance Testing is done. As various levels of testing have been completed most of the technical bugs have already been fixed before UAT.
User Acceptance Testing - What to Test?
To ensure an effective User Acceptance Testing Test cases are created.
These Test cases can be created using various use cases identified during the Requirements definition stage.
The Test cases ensure proper coverage of all the scenarios during testing.
During this type of testing the specific focus is the exact real world usage of the application. The Testing is done in an environment that simulates the production environment.
The Test cases are written using real world scenarios for the application
User Acceptance Testing - How to Test?
The user acceptance testing is usually a black box type of testing. In other words, the focus is on the functionality and the usability of the application rather than the technical aspects. It is generally assumed that the application would have already undergone Unit, Integration and System Level Testing.
However, it is useful if the User acceptance Testing is carried out in an environment that closely resembles the real world or production environment.
The steps taken for User Acceptance Testing typically involve one or more of the following:
1) User Acceptance Test (UAT) Planning
2) Designing UA Test Cases
3) Selecting a Team that would execute the (UAT) Test Cases
4) Executing Test Cases
5) Documenting the Defects found during UAT
6) Resolving the issues/Bug Fixing
7) Sign Off
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User Acceptance Testing