What Is User Acceptance Testing (UAT): A Complete Guide

Discover What User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Is, Including its Definition, Varieties, Process, and Examples:

My first rule when learning a new concept is that: the name is always relevant and usually has a literal meaning (in the technical context).

Understanding the name gives me an initial grasp of the concept and helps me get started.

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Let’s put this concept to the test.

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What Is User Acceptance Testing?

We are familiar with testing, and acceptance refers to approval or agreement. In the context of software, the user can be the consumer or the client who requested its creation.

So, according to my rule, the definition is:

User Acceptance Testing (UAT), also known as beta or end-user testing, refers to the evaluation of software by users or clients to determine its acceptance. This is the final testing phase conducted after functional, system, and regression testing are complete.

The main purpose of this testing is to validate the software against business requirements. End-users familiar with the business requirements perform this validation.

UAT, alpha and beta testing are different forms of acceptance testing.

As UAT is the final test before software goes live, it is the last opportunity for customers to test and assess its suitability.

When Is It Performed?

UAT is typically the last step before product deployment or acceptance. It takes place after thorough product testing, such as system testing.

Who Performs UAT?

UAT is conducted by users or clients. This includes product buyers (for commercial software) or individuals who requested a custom-built software solution from a service provider. Additionally, end-users may participate if they have access to the software before its official release and their feedback is sought.

The UAT team can consist of beta testers or members selected internally from various departments within the organization. This ensures thorough testing of each user role.

Need For User Acceptance Testing

Developers and functional testers are experts in validating software against functional specifications. However, they may overlook certain business requirements and processes that are known only to end-users.

User acceptance testing plays a crucial role in validating whether all business requirements are met before software release. It verifies software functionality against business needs using real use cases and live data, making it an essential part of the release cycle.

Businesses that have suffered significant losses due to post-release issues understand the importance of successful UAT. Fixing defects after release is often more costly than addressing them before.

Is UAT Really Necessary?

After conducting extensive system, integration, and regression testing, you might question the necessity of UAT. However, it remains essential as it allows users who will actually use the system to validate its fitness for purpose.

UAT is a phase heavily influenced by end-users and their domain knowledge. Early involvement of business teams can provide valuable insights and contributions for effective system usage in the real world.

User Acceptance Testing Process

The UAT process can be considered an independent testing project with planning, design, and execution phases.

Before the planning phase begins, you need to:

#1) Gather the key Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance criteria define what will be evaluated before accepting the product. They can be categorized into two types:

(i) Application Functionality or Business-Related

Ideally, all key business functionality should be validated. However, due to constraints like time, it may not be possible. Meeting with clients or users involved in testing can help determine the extent of testing required and which aspects should be prioritized.

(ii) Contractual – This category does not involve the QA team. It focuses on reviewing the initial contract to ensure all contract aspects have been delivered as agreed.

The primary focus should be on application functionality.

#2) Define the scope of QA involvement.

The QA team’s role can be one of the following:

(i) No Involvement – Rarely the case.

(ii) Assist in this testing – Most common. The QA team may train UAT users on how to use the application and provide support during testing. They may also record results or log bugs while users perform testing.

(iii) Perform UAT and present Results – In this scenario, the QA team performs the evaluation based on areas of the application identified by users. Results are presented to clients/users for their decision on whether they are sufficient and align with their expectations.

Based on the situation, the most suitable approach is chosen.

Objectives and Expectations:

UAT is typically conducted by a Subject Matter Expert (SME) or a business user who owns or is the customer of the system under test. The UAT phase includes several key activities before reaching closure.

The key activities of each UAT phase are defined below:

UAT Governance

To ensure strong quality gates, effective governance is enforced for UAT. This includes defined entry and exit criteria for successful testing.
** Please note that this is a general guidance. The specifics may be modified based on project needs and requirements.

UAT Test Planning

The UAT test planning process is similar to that of a standard test plan in the system phase.

The most common approach in most projects is to plan for both system and UAT testing phases together. For a sample UAT test plan and more information, refer to the UAT sections in the attached test plan document.

User Acceptance Test Plan

(This is the same test plan available in our QA training series).

Click the image below and scroll down to find the test plan document sample in various formats. Check the UAT section in the template.

The UAT test plan includes dates, environment information, actors, communication protocols, roles and responsibilities, templates, result analysis process, and entry/exit criteria. It should consider all relevant factors to ensure a successful testing phase, regardless of QA team involvement.

User Acceptance Testing Design

This step uses the acceptance criteria gathered from end-users. Sample templates are as follows:

(Excerpts from CSTE CBOK – one of the best references on this testing.)

User Acceptance Testing Template:

Based on the criteria, the QA team provides the users with a list of UAT test cases. These test cases are not different from regular system test cases; they are a subset focusing on key functional areas instead of testing every aspect of the application.

In addition to test cases, the necessary data, result recording templates, administrative procedures, and defect logging mechanisms should be prepared prior to proceeding to the next phase.

Test Execution

In cases where possible, UAT is conducted in a conference or war room setting where users, project managers, and QA team representatives work together for a day or two to execute all acceptance test cases.

If the QA team is responsible for testing, they execute the test cases on the application under test.

Once all the tests are executed and results are logged, an Acceptance Decision is made. This is also known as the Go/No-Go decision. If users are satisfied, it’s a Go; otherwise, it’s a No-go.

Reaching the acceptance decision typically marks the end of this phase.

Tools & Methodologies

The tools used in this phase are typically similar to those used for functional testing.

Tools:

Since UAT verifies end-to-end flows, it may not be possible to fully automate this validation. However, some degree of automation using scripts developed during system testing is achievable.

Additionally, test management and defect management tools like QC, JIRA, etc., are commonly used by users during UAT. These tools can be configured to gather data for the User Acceptance phase.

Methodologies:

While conventional methodologies involve business users as primary testers, in today’s globalized world, UAT sometimes requires involvement from customers across multiple countries.

For example, an e-commerce website may be used by customers worldwide. In such scenarios, crowd testing becomes a viable option.

Crowd testing involves participation from customers worldwide, allowing them to validate product usage, provide feedback, and make recommendations.

Many organizations now use crowd testing platforms, where customers can sign up to test and provide feedback on hosted websites or products. Feedback is then analyzed and prioritized.

Crowd testing methodologies are proving effective in capturing customer feedback worldwide.

UAT In Agile Environment

The agile environment is highly dynamic. In an agile world, business users are involved throughout project sprints, providing feedback for continuous enhancement.

At the beginning of a project, business users contribute requirements to update the product backlog. After each sprint, business users participate in demos to provide feedback.

Furthermore, a UAT phase is planned before completing a sprint, during which business users validate the product.

Feedback received during sprint demos and sprint UAT is added back to the product backlog, which is constantly reviewed and prioritized. This close collaboration between the business users and the project team allows for frequent evaluations of the project’s usability.

UAT Team – Roles & Responsibilities

Typically, a UAT team consists of various roles and responsibilities. The team is supported by project managers, development teams, and testing teams as required.

7 Challenges Of UAT And Mitigation Plan

Regardless of your project’s size, overcoming these challenges is crucial for delivering successful software to end-users:

#1) Environment setup and deployment process:

Conducting this test in the same environment as the functional testing team overlooks real-world use cases. Additionally, performance testing cannot be executed on an incomplete test environment without proper test data.

A separate production-like environment should be established for UAT.

Controlling the release cycle effectively is essential once the UAT environment is separated. Uncontrolled releases may result in different software versions in test and UAT environments. Valid acceptance testing time gets wasted when software is not tested on the latest version.

#2) Test Planning:

UAT requires clear acceptance test planning during the requirement analysis and design phase.

Define the test objectives for this testing during the planning phase, identifying real-world use cases for execution. Prioritize testing critical business objectives, as it may not be possible to execute all test cases for large applications in this phase. Delays in previous stages of development and testing consume UAT time.

Proper test planning is critical to avoid overlap between system testing and UAT. Avoid deploying software to the UAT environment if functional testing is incomplete, due to time constraints and pressure to meet deadlines. Core objectives of UAT cannot be pursued under such circumstances.

Prepare and communicate the UAT test plan to the team in advance. This helps with test planning, test case writing, script creation, and UAT environment setup.

#3) Handling new business requirements as incidents/defects:

Ambiguities in requirements may arise during UAT. Testers identify issues caused by ambiguous requirements (due to complete UI visibility during this phase) and log them as defects.

Customers expect these issues to be fixed in the current release without considering change request lead time. Timely decision-making by project management on last-minute changes is crucial to avoid release failure.

#4) Unskilled testers or testers without business knowledge:

In the absence of a dedicated team, testers for UAT are selected from various internal departments.

While these individuals may be familiar with business needs, they may lack training in newly developed requirements, resulting in ineffective UAT. Non-technical business teams may face technical difficulties during test case execution.

Assigning testers at the end of the UAT cycle provides little value to the project. Adequate time for UAT staff training significantly increases the chances of UAT success.

#5) Improper Communication Channel:

Communication between remote development, testing, and UAT teams can be challenging. Email communication is often difficult when dealing with an offshore tech team. Ambiguities in incident reports can lead to delays in issue resolution.

Effective communication and proper planning are critical for successful team collaboration. Project teams should use web-based tools to log defects and questions, distributing the workload evenly and preventing duplicate reporting.

#6) Asking Functional test team to perform UAT:

Asking the functional test team to perform UAT yields poor results.

Customers may shirk responsibility, outsourcing the task to the test team due to resource constraints. This compromises the purpose of UAT. When the software goes live, end-users quickly spot issues that functional testers did not consider as real-world scenarios.

Dedicated and skilled testers with business knowledge should be assigned to perform UAT.

#7) The Blame Game

Occasionally, business users may seek reasons to reject the software, either to demonstrate their superiority or to blame the development and testing team to gain respect within the business team. While rare, this can occur in teams with internal politics.

Handling these situations is challenging, but building a positive relationship with the business team can help mitigate the blame game.

I hope these guidelines will help you execute a successful user acceptance plan by overcoming various challenges. Proper planning, communication, execution, and a motivated team are key to successful user acceptance testing.

System Testing Vs User Acceptance Testing

Testing team involvement begins early in the project, from the requirement analysis phase onwards.

Throughout the project lifecycle, different types of validation are performed, such as static testing, unit testing, system testing, integration testing, end-to-end testing, or regression testing. This leads us to explore UAT in more depth and how it differs from previous testing phases.

While there are differences between System Integration Testing (SIT) and UAT, it is important to leverage their synergies while maintaining their independence, enabling faster time to market.

Conclusion

#1) UAT is not focused on individual pages, fields, or buttons. Implicitly, it assumes that all basic elements have been thoroughly tested and are functioning correctly. Discovering basic bugs during UAT is very problematic for the QA team. 🙁

#2) UAT focuses on the core aspects of the business, not just the application itself.

For example: In the case of a ticketing system, UAT doesn’t focus on searching for menu items or opening pages. Instead, it focuses on tickets, reservations, their states, and their journey through the system.

Another example, for a car dealership website, UAT focuses on the “car and its sales” rather than the website itself. Thus, UAT validates the core business of the system, making involvement of business owners crucial.

#3) User acceptance testing is still testing at its core, which means there is a chance of identifying bugs during this phase too. When UAT exposes an issue, it often triggers urgent meetings to discuss how to handle it, as there is often insufficient time to fix and retest.

Decisions regarding the issue may include:

• Pushing the go-live date to fix the issue before proceeding.
• Leaving the bug as is.
• Considering it as a change request for future releases.

#4) UAT is classified as alpha and beta testing, although this classification is less significant in typical software development projects in service-based industries.

• Alpha testing is performed in the software builder’s environment and is more relevant for commercial off-the-shelf software.
• Beta testing occurs in the production or client’s environment. It is more common for customer-facing applications, with actual customers like you and me participating.

#5) In most regular software development projects, UAT is conducted in the QA environment if there is no separate staging or UAT environment.

In short, the best way to assess the acceptance and suitability of your product is to put it in front of the users.

Organizations are transitioning to Agile methodologies, with increased involvement from business users. Projects are being enhanced and delivered based on feedback loops. User acceptance testing serves as the gate to implementation and production.

What has been your experience with UAT? Were you on standby or did you test on behalf of users? Did users discover any issues? If so, how were they handled?

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