User Acceptance Testing for Software and Applications

Accept and release with confidence

What is User Acceptance Testing?

• User Acceptance testing is the final Q&A step emulating real-world usage conditions before a software application is released to end users. These tests are not usually focused on identifying simple problems such as spelling errors and cosmetic problems, nor show stopper defects such as software crashes which should have been fixed during earlier testing phases. Test scenarios may have one or many acceptance tests, whatever it takes to ensure the functionality works. Acceptance tests are black box system tests whereby each test represents some expected result from the system. Acceptance tests are also used as regression tests prior to a production release.
• Acceptance testing can be done by the system/software provider but are usually performed by clients or end-users (customer) prior to accepting transfer of ownership. Acceptance testing performed by the customer is sometimes called user acceptance testing.
• The results of these tests give confidence to the clients as to how the system will perform in production. There may also be legal or contractual requirement for acceptance of the system. When done properly, it gives confidence to both provider and customer that the application is truly ready for release.

Why do User Acceptance Testing?

• User Acceptance testing provides confidence that the delivered system meets business requirements and is the final quality check where any defects not previously detected are be uncovered.
• The principal purpose of acceptance testing is that, once completed successfully, and provided acceptance criteria are met, the sponsors will then sign off on the system as satisfying the contract (previously agreed between developer and customer), and deliver final payment.

Process Overview

Establish criteria: To ‘accept’ or ‘not accept’ needs to be defined from the beginning. Mutually agreed-upon requirements are usually decided in the beginning of the project as a gate before a client or customer accepts the new system.

Develop tests: Based on the acceptance criteria, tests are created ideally through collaboration between the customer, testers, and developers. However the customer is the primary owner of these tests. As the user stories pass their acceptance criteria, the customer can be sure that the developers are progressing in the right direction about how the application was envisaged to work. Therefore, it's essential that user acceptance tests include both business logic and UI validation. Each individual test case exercises a particular operating condition of the user's environment or feature of the system, using a test environment designed to be identical, or as close as possible, to the anticipated user's environment including any extreme situations. The designer of the user acceptance tests should not be the creator of the formal integration and system test cases for the same system.

Execute tests: Users of the system perform these tests. The acceptance test suite is run against the supplied input data and the results obtained are compared with the expected results. If there is a correct match for every case, the test suite is said to pass. If not, the system may either be rejected or accepted based on previously set conditions.

Benefits of XBOSoft User Acceptance Testing

• If you are a software developer, we will ensure your application is "customer ready".
• If you are purchasing a software system, we will ensure you get what you paid for.
• XBO Team deliverables include:
  • Test Plan a outlining the testing strategy; the most important of all the steps, this provides an outline of the entry and exit criteria. We work with you to derive from either your requirements specification or contract.
  • Acceptance Test cases. Based on the Test plan and pass/fail criteria, we develop test scenarios and test cases with expected results that cover all aspects of the functionality of your system.
  • Test Log. All the test cases executed with expected versus actual results documented combined with defects and/or issues found. The issues/defects found during testing are discussed with the Project Team, Subject Matter Experts and Business Analysts and resolved as per the mutual consensus and to the satisfaction of the end users.
  • Sign Off: Upon successful completion of the User Acceptance Testing and resolution of the issues, we provide a recommendation on the acceptance of the application.