User acceptance testing is also called beta testing. It is a stage in the software development where the end users are presented with an opportunity to test drive the software. User acceptance testing is usually conducted by a group of test users who tend to represent the entire user base. As test users explore the system, they will conduct many operations for the assessment of user convenience, how it is able to meet user’s demands and how effectively it lets users to achieve their objectives efficiently with the help of the application. With the help of the user testing, the test users can determine and request any necessary tweaks to the system in order to optimize it for achieving the organizational goals. After implementing the needed modifications, the system is tested thoroughly before you make it accessible to the larger user base.

What does the User Acceptance Testing entail?

Before working with UAT, you need to build a UAT plan. This entails UAT schedule, participating team members, UAT feedback procedure, predetermined acceptance criteria and well determined sign off procedure. Consultation Cassian delineated each of them below.

• UAT Schedule

This is a timeline dedicated to UAT activities. It mentions when application review will take place and gives a timeline for the dev team to review the necessary feedbacks. It is important that once the feedback is offered, communication takes place.

• List of Team Members

This entails the members of client and dev team both. It mentions the roles and responsibilities and guides the UAT team to reference in the entire process.

• UAT Feedback Procedure

This feedback is offered by the client team to let the stakeholders request the alterations to the application before its final deployment. This feedback is important for dev team as it makes sure that the final product is exactly what the client needs. The entire process should entail a UAT feedback template, a person to whom the feedback is given and schedule of the UAT feedback submission and review by the project team.

• Acceptance Criteria

This lets the project team have a set of standards that the application must meet to be signed off on. Without this process, the UAT will be deployed with zero benchmarks to be accomplished.

• Sign-off Procedure

Once UAT is about to be completed and the acceptance criteria have been accomplished, it needs to be documented on the application before it can be finally deployed. This must entail who will be signing off on the final copy and the strategy for implementing after the approval of the application.

Paul Petersen