User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
A test that helps a business make sure a product or solution works as expected for real users before launch. Sometimes called “beta testing.”
Explanation
Goals of UAT:
- Validate real-world functionality
- Confirm the product meets requirements
- Identify issues before release
UAT agenda
- Welcome users and thank them for participating
- Present the product
- Start UAT test cases, taking the audience through critical user journeys
- Walk users through a demonstration
- Identify edge cases
- Recap findings, identify issues, prioritize which to address first
Critical user journey — the sequence of steps a user follows to accomplish tasks in the product.
Edge case — a rare outlier, typically around maximums or minimums of parameters. Common in software projects.
Best practices
- Define clear acceptance criteria
- Create test cases and user-based scripts
- Select real end users (not the project team)
- Prepare users and testing environment
- Provide clear step-by-step instructions
- Document results and track issues centrally
Managing UAT feedback
UAT output is split into two types:
- Bugs / issues — track and prioritize; fix critical ones first
- Change requests — evaluate, prioritize, align with stakeholders and timeline (via change-management)
Don’t confuse the two. Bugs mean the product doesn’t meet its own spec; change requests mean the spec itself was incomplete.
Application
UAT runs near the end of course-4-project-execution, before launch. Results feed impact reporting at closing. In Agile projects, UAT is embedded into each sprint review rather than saved for a big-bang test phase.
Connections
- change-management — UAT change requests route through change control
- course-4-project-execution
- scrum-framework — sprint review as incremental UAT