Following are key success factors for user acceptance testing :
- In UAT the most important success factor is to see the functionality from the perspective of the user. A new functionality must pass the test of user acceptance to be a successful functionality.
- The goal of UAT is to capture software issues and defects before the customers do. If the experience is not good, if the software elements don’t work together effectively and in an intutive manner, then the experience is not a positive one and the outcome will be a lot of support calls and poetntial impact on the business.
- Functional specifications are a good reference point, but curiosity about the quality of the experience is a key part of UAT success.
- Business will own the experience once the development work is completed. It’s easier and cheaper to make changes during the development phase instead of having to fix experiences after the release when everyone is busy with other priorities.
- UAT must start after all other testing have been completed such as integration, unit and functional testing. If the code changes after UAT starts, then the tests are not final and regressions testing is needed that will be time consuming and can affect the release timeline.
- Testers must have certain qualities. They must be curious and interested in learning. They must ask a lot of questions about expected outcomes and expected experiences. Tester must be mature and demonstrate resilience. Testers must not give up easily or get frustrated with ambiguities in the functionality or issues with testing environment. Testers must articulate the issues they find. Finally, good testers must be team players and be willing to work with developers, business owners and other testers to learn, eaxchange learnings and work together for the best testing outcomes.
- Testing requires testing the entire end to end because the customers will expect the full end to end experience to work flawlessly.
- The test team must maintain high integrity and create a work relationship based on trust with business and development teams.
- Pass/fail criteria and expected outcomes must be clear before testing starts.
- UAT sign off criteria and sign-off authority must be clear before UAT starts.
- The test cases must simulate the real world users. Customers will use the system for real world issues and will push the system to stisfy their needs and meet their requirements and will take full advantage of what it offers.
- Focus the testing on high importance test cases first and then take on less critical scenarios. Determining which test are critical is a requirements before UAT starts.