Business Analyst Role In UAT| Acceptance Testing (UAT) From Business Analyst Perspective

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) History

User acceptance testing (UAT) has emerged as more user involvement is both expected and required. User means the business or subject matter experts (SME’s) or, usually, the actual end user of the product rather than the manager who may have been more involved in the project.

The business expects to accept the product rather than simply assuming the final product will be fit for purpose. This additional involvement is reflected in the software or product life cycle in all stages prior to user acceptance testing with a particular focus during the analysis phase when the requirements are agreed.

The benefit is that there are no surprises when the product is released and any surprises can be addressed before the product is released to the wider user community. The downside is greater involvement of user time but this can be managed and the benefits offset the disadvantages.

User acceptance testing (UAT) has emerged to focus and address the perspectives of:  

• User – users who will use the solution are rarely engaged in the project that produces it. This is true even in Agile projects, where the product owner (who is very involved) is only one person, and other users are more removed. UAT allows users to see what has been produced as well as provide feedback before it is deployed.
• Acceptance – no system or product is perfect, but we can make sure it’s up to standard before releasing it. The final users of the system or product – those who aren’t involved with building it- must be the ones to accept or reject what we’ve made. User acceptance testing is their opportunity to give feedback about what does and doesn’t work for them.
• Testing – attempts to define ahead of time what the system or product will be and do is difficult and whilst there are many tools and techniques to help the process – it is good practice to demo and test the product with real-world customers and user testing.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Objectives

UAT’s prime purpose is to demonstrate that the system is fit for use in the business. It is not the same as system testing which should prove (within time and resource constraints) that the system behaves in the way that was described in the requirements specification.

Also, the objectives for user acceptance testing (UAT) should be to design and conduct test scenarios with a view to identifying where a product fails to meet the needs of the business stakeholders and users. The objectives should also include supporting the business user community in ensuring that a product is of sufficient level of quality to be accepted for deployment.

UAT is, to some degree, a public relations exercise as end users tend to be involved as well as stakeholders and they will (hopefully) gain some confidence in the quality of the system, understand how to use it and, very importantly, start to see its benefits.

There are many other forms of testing which, for example, prove the code works as designed at a fine grained level (unit testing) or prove the various systems interact as expected (integration testing).

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Principles

Although it is not as exhaustive as system testing, it is equally rigorous in what is tested and documented and formal acceptance criteria and process.

Project objectives, business benefits and critical success factors should all be used to help define acceptance criteria

Users and business stakeholders should be involved in decision making and planning throughout UAT. They will become natural ‘champions’ for the new system if they are fully involved and consulted.

It is critical that the business are fully engaged in the planning and design of the user acceptance test and the production of acceptance criteria. This is one of the last hurdles before the product is released into the world and the understanding of the product and problems uncovered at this stage are vital in making the decision to ‘go live’ with the product.

Poor user acceptance testing can cause significant problems for the business.