What is User Acceptance Testing (UAT)?

UAT validates that the software functions as intended and ensures that the software can handle real-world scenarios and tasks. By involving the end-users in the testing process, UAT ensures that the software is user-friendly, intuitive, and meets the users’ expectations, leading to higher user satisfaction. Conducting UAT reduces the risk of failures after deployment. It ensures that any major issues are identified and fixed before the software is released, thereby saving time, effort, and cost associated with fixing problems after release.

User acceptance testing or UAT is the final stage of software testing before market release to validate your software's functionality and usability from an end-user’s perspective. UAT is a fundamental testing method among other functional testing methods and is performed after system testing (part of functional testing).

With UAT, you use real-world data, create and test scenarios, and execute workflows to see how your software holds up or performs. UAT takes more time to conduct when compared to other functional testing methods. It helps validate your whole or integrated system and identify user-facing issues to resolve.

Some prominent UAT testing tools include:

• HotJar
• UserBrain
• Maze

Also Read: Types of Software Testing Tools

UAT helps confirm/reject your assumptions about your software's functionality and usability. Also known as application testing, UAT aims to test how well is your software getting “accepted” by end-users.

UAT is geared towards identifying issues that may have been missed or overlooked in other testing methods to prevent flawed software from getting into users’ hands.

Unlike other testing methods that are usually performed during the development process, UAT is performed at the end of the software development cycle just before your software hits the market. It helps pinpoint the errors or bugs for prompt fixes and prevents buggy software from getting released into the market.

UAT is performed by a team or individuals normally referred to as beta testers. Beta testers include users, stakeholders, clients, and software testers.

All users participating in beta testing of your software may or may not be part of your core development or testing team. Including people with diverse roles to test your software helps mimic the real-world usage of your software. After that, you report bugs, defects, or issues to the development team for proper fixes.

Also Read: Bug Life Cycle: Overview, Bug vs. Defect, Reducing TAT for Bug Resolution

Let’s say you have an e-commerce application and you want to run UAT tests for the checkout process where a user ends up buying a product. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Check the Prerequisites: Entry Criteria

Begin by analyzing the requirements to ensure alignment with the entry criteria for User Acceptance Testing (UAT). Next, set your testing objectives and identify your testers or users. Then, prepare the UAT environment for testing.

For example, let’s say you want to validate the checkout process and workflows of your e-commerce app, where a user completes a purchase. Your clients or stakeholders will act as beta testers or users.

Step 2: Define Test Scenarios

Next, define test scenarios that cover targeted scopes of the functionality and usability of the checkout process.

For instance, define three test scenarios as acceptance test scenarios/criteria for your objective to test the checkout process. Here are the acceptance test criteria examples:

• Test Scenario 1: User successfully buys a product.
• Test Scenario 2: Valid discount codes successfully apply to a product.
• Test Scenario 3: Add-to-cart functionality works as specified.

Step 3: Define and Execute Tests to Check for Results

Define the steps to execute to test the considered scenarios. Here are the example execution steps:

1 # Test steps where the user successfully buys a product (Test Scenario 1):

• Step 1: Add cart items
• Step 2: Proceed to checkout
• Step 3: Enter shipping details and proceed
• Step 4: Use valid/test payment details and proceed
• Step 5: Complete the purchase

2 # Test steps where the user successfully applies a valid discount code (Test Scenario 2):

• Step 1: Apply a valid discount code during checkout
• Step 2: Check if the specific discount code correctly applies to the product

3 # Test steps where the user can update the shopping cart (Test Scenario 3):

• Step 1: Add cart items
• Step 2: Remove cart items
• Step 3: Check if the shopping cart items get updated
• Step 4: Check if the amount gets updated when you make changes to cart items

Step 4: Exit Criteria

Lastly, validate the proper functioning and usability of the cart functionality. If you find any issues, you report them to the development team and provide your feedback with detailed bug reports.

Here are the exit criteria for the three test scenarios that you considered for UAT:

• You executed all test scenarios. You analyzed and reported the outcomes.
• No critical issues remain in the workflows or the execution process.
• You find the functionality, workflows, and user flows intuitive and free from errors or defects.

UAT helps you validate your customers’ expectations that ultimately benefit your software in several ways. Here are some top benefits of performing UAT for your software:

Creates Market-fit Software

UAT helps to create market-fit products by testing and validating to remove any evident errors. Polished software helps enhance customer satisfaction, reduces customer churn, and catapults software growth and success.  

Enhances User Experience

UAT helps ensure customers are happy using your product. UAT is a user-centric approach that directly helps to enhance user experience by identifying user-facing issues for quick fixes.

Helps Meet Business Requirements

UAT also helps validate that the business requirements are met and the client has no issues with the delivered product. It also ensures that your software is release-ready and the software business logic aligns with the project requirements.

Here are the UAT types in software testing:

Alpha and Beta Testing

In alpha testing, you test software in the development environment. Core members of the development and the testing team participate in the test runs to identify and report functional and usability issues to the developers. After applying fixes for the issues, your software moves to the beta testing phase.

Beta testing is performed in a production environment by end-users, clients, and by external and internal testers. As per the feedback from these participants, bugs are reported and resolved. You perform beta testing of software just before the market release to ensure that your software is free from errors and unexpected behaviors.

Black Box Testing

Black box testing helps test and validate your software without knowing the internal code workings. You don’t need to know how the source code works behind the scenes while running black box tests. You only validate the software from an end-user’s perspective.

For black box testing, you provide valid inputs or actions to the specific software functions to check whether or not you get valid outputs or results. If there are any issues or bugs, you report them for fixing.

Read More: What is Black Box Testing?

Operational Acceptance Testing

The operational efficiency of the software is ensured with operational acceptance testing.  You test software backups, disaster recovery mechanisms, maintenance workflows, etc. to ensure that operational fail-safes are in place and your software can handle operations and sustain in real-world conditions.

Contract Acceptance Testing

Contract acceptance testing ensures that the software is developed as per the project contract between you and your client. It validates that the delivered software runs, performs, and is aligned as per the specifications mentioned in the contract agreement.

Regulation Acceptance Testing

Regulation acceptance testing ensures that your software complies with industry-specific and location-specific rules and regulations. You test and validate that the legal and regulatory guidelines are met to avoid clashes with the legal authorities. It is especially performed on software that concerns healthcare, banking, finance, etc.  

Here are some best practices to include while you test your software with UAT:

Market Analysis and User Feedback

Conduct UAT tests based on thorough market analysis, gathered data, and user feedback. It helps to understand your target audience and get insights into what users want and how they interact with your software. This positively affects your UAT processes.

Proper Test Planning

The scope for UAT testing is not limited or fixed and can be anything or of any size. So, instead of subjecting the entire system to UAT tests  — which is time-consuming — it's best to do it in a targeted and strategic way with proper test planning within predetermined scopes. This improves testing efficiency and helps prevent delays in software release cycles.

Also Read: STLC: Getting Started with Software Testing

Test Case Design

Designing relevant test cases is as important as planning proper tests. UAT objectives, test cases/scenarios, steps to follow, and outcomes must align with how users interact with your software as per the specifications and features. The test cases must also align with the business goals or requirements.

Detailed Bug Reports

Creating detailed bug reports for debugging can significantly speed up the UAT processes. It helps cut back on to-and-fro communication and saves time. Additionally, it also helps in understanding and resolving any similar issues that could arise in the future.

Also Read: The Hidden Costs of Poor Bug Reporting  

Documentation

It's best to keep documenting the UAT processes at all times for reference. That way, it's much easier to follow up on issues, confirm business requirements, and keep the testing processes organized and streamlined. It helps keep other team members and clients in the loop about the ongoing testing processes and project status.