User acceptance testing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is a process to obtain confirmation by a Subject Matter Expert (SME), preferably the owner or client of the object under test, through trial or review, that the modification or addition meets mutually agreed-upon requirements. In software development, UAT is one of the final stages of a project and often occurs before a client or customer accepts the new system.
Users of the system perform these tests, which ideally developers derive from the client's contract or the user requirements specification.
Test designers draw up formal tests and devise a range of severity levels. The test designer may or may not be the creator of the formal test cases for the same system. UAT acts as a final verification of the required business function and proper functioning of the system, emulating real-world usage conditions. If the software works as intended and without issues during a simulation of normal use, one can reasonably infer the same level of stability in production. These tests, which are usually performed by clients or end-users, are not focussed on identifying simple problems such as spelling errors and cosmetic problems, nor show stopper bugs, such as software crashes; testers and developers previously identify and fix these issues during earlier unit testing, integration testing, and system testing phases.
The results of these tests give confidence to the clients as to how the system will perform in production.
Other testing processes include:
- System integration testing
- Production testing
[edit] External links
- Article Using Customer Tests to Drive Development from Methods & Tools
- ITIL Definition - Release Acceptance (a sub process of Release Management) -- The Activity responsible for testing a Release, and its implementation and Back-out Plans, to ensure they meet the agreed Business and IT Operations Requirements.
