User acceptance testing: Goals, best

practices, and management

In the previous video, you learned about different ways to measure customer satisfaction,
including feedback surveys and user acceptance testing (UAT). This reading will focus on why
conducting UAT is essential to the successful launch of any product, service, or software. We will
also discuss some best practices for effective UAT and how to manage the feedback you
receive. 

The goals of UAT

 Demonstrate that the product, service, or process is behaving in expected ways in

 Show that the product, service, or process is working  as intended.

 Identify issues that need to be addressed before considering the project as done.

UAT simulates real-world conditions, so when the feature works as intended during the testing
process, you can be more confident that your product, service, or process will work properly once
it is launched. It allows a project team to gather detailed information about how users interact
with a product, service, or process. UAT helps the team answer such questions as: Do users
recognize its purpose and uses? How do they interact with it? How much time do users take to
interact with it? Do they notice all of its features? Is the product, service, or process accessible to
everyone? UAT also allows the project team to record information about how users feel about
their experience with a product, service, or process. Through testing, the team can learn about
the emotions it evokes, identities it conveys, appeal it holds, and so on.

Best practices for effective UAT

 Define and write down your acceptance criteria. Acceptance criteria are pre-
established standards or requirements that a product, service, or process must meet.
Write down these requirements for each item that you intend to test. For example, if
your project is to create a new employee handbook for your small business, you may
set acceptance criteria that the handbook must be a digital PDF that is accessible on
mobile devices and desktop.
  Create the test cases for each item that you are testing. A test case is a
sequence of steps and its expected results. It usually consists of a series of actions
that the user can perform to find out if the product, service, or process behaved the
way it was supposed to. Continuing with the employee handbook example, you
could create a test case process in which the user would click to download the PDF
of the handbook on their mobile device or desktop to ensure that they could access
it without issues.

 Select your users carefully. It is important to choose users who will actually be the
end users of the product, service, or process. 

 Write the UAT scripts based on user stories. These scripts will be delivered to the
users during the testing process. A user story is an informal, general explanation of
a feature written from the perspective of the end user. In our employee handbook
example, a user story might be: As a new employee, I want to be able to use the
handbook to easily locate the vacation policy and share it with my team via email. 

 Communicate with users and let them know what to expect. If you can prepare
users ahead of time, there will be fewer questions, issues, or delays during the
testing process.

 Prepare the testing environment for UAT. Ensure that the users have proper
credentials and access, and try out these credentials ahead of time to ensure they
work. 

 Provide a step-by-step plan to help guide users through the testing process. It
will be helpful for users to have some clear, easy-to-follow instructions that will help
focus their attention on the right places. You can create this plan in a digital
document or spreadsheet and share with them ahead of time. 
 Compile notes in a single document and record any issues that are
discovered. You can create a digital spreadsheet or document that corresponds to
your plan. It can have designated areas to track issues for each item that is tested,
including the users’ opinions on the severity of each issue. This will help you
prioritize fixes. 

Managing UAT feedback

 Bugs or issues: Users might report technical issues, also known as bugs, or other
types of issues after performing UAT. You can track and monitor these issues in a
spreadsheet or equivalent system and prioritize which issues to fix. For instance,
critical issues, such as not being able to access, download, or search the employee
handbook, need to be prioritized over non-critical issues, such as feedback on the
cover art of the handbook. 

 Change requests: Sometimes the user might suggest minor changes to the
product, service, or process after UAT. These types of requests or changes should
 also be managed and prioritized. Depending on the type and volume of the
requests, you may want to share this data with your primary stakeholders, and you
may also need to adjust your project timeline to implement these new requests. 

User acceptance testing is a powerful tool to ensure that your project outcome is desirable and
successful. Be sure to leave time in the schedule for proper testing and issue resolution.