What is User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and How

to Perform It Effectively?
Posted In | Types of testing | Last Updated: "April 17, 2017"

User Acceptance testing is the topic of the day. We will discuss all about
UAT – its definition, types, steps, detailed process etc. in this tutorial.

What You Will Learn:

What is User Acceptance Testing (UAT)?
User Acceptance Testing Process: How is UAT performed?
UAT Test planning
UAT design
UAT Test execution

What is User Acceptance Testing (UAT)?

My rule number one when trying to understand a new concept is that: the
name is always going to be relevant and mostly a literal meaning (in the
technical context). Finding out what that is, will give me an initial
understanding of it and gets me started.
Let us put this concept to test. UAT stands for User Acceptance Testing.
We know what testing is, acceptance means approval or agreement. User
in the context of a software product is either the consumer of the software
or the person who requested it to be built for him/her (client).

So, following my rule -UAT means testing a software by the user/client to

determine whether it can be accepted or not – the definition. Give this
method a try with other technical words too. Trust me, it works every
single time. :)

When is it performed?
This is typically the last step before the product goes live or before the
delivery of the product is accepted. UAT is after the product itself is
thoroughly tested (i.e after system testing).
Who performs UAT?
Users or client – This could be either someone who is buying a product (in
the case of commercial software) or someone who has had a software
custom built through a software service provider or the end user if the
software is made available to them ahead of time and when their
feedback is sought.

User Acceptance Testing Process: How is UAT performed?

The easiest way to understand this process is to think of UAT as an
autonomous testing project – which means, it will have the plan, design
and the execute phases.

The following are the pre-requisites before the plan phase begins:
1. Gather the key acceptance criteria

Acceptance criteria- to simply put, this is a list of things that are going to
get evaluated before accepting the product. These could be of 2 types:

A) Application functionality or business related

Ideally all key business functionality should get validated but due to
various reasons, including time, it is not practical to do it all. Therefore, a
meeting or two with the client or the users who are going to be involved in
UAT can give us an idea on how much testing is going to be involved and
what aspects are going to be tested.

B) Contractual – we are not going to go into this and the involvement of

the QA team in all this is almost nothing. The initial contract that gets
drawn up even before the SDLC begins is reviewed and an agreement is
reached upon whether all the aspects of the contract have been delivered
or not.

We are going to focus only on application functionality.

2. Define the scope of QA involvement. QA team’s role is one of
the following:

A) No involvement – This is very rare.

B) Assist in UAT – most common. In this case, our involvement could be

training the UAT users in how to use the application and be on standby
during the UAT to make sure we can help the users in case of any
difficulty. Or in some cases, in addition to being on standby and assisting,
we might share their responsibility and record the results or log bugs etc.
while the users perform the actual testing.

C) Perform UAT and present results – If this is the case, the users will
point the areas of the AUT that they want to evaluate and the evaluation
itself is performed by the QA team. Once done, the results are presented
to the clients/users and they will make a decision on whether the results
that they have in hand are sufficient and in accordance with their
expectations in order to accept the AUT. The decision is never that of the
QA team.
Depending on the case on hand, we decide which approach is best.

UAT Test planning

The process is almost the same as with the regular test plan for the
system phase. The most common approach followed in most of the
projects is to plan for both system and UAT testing phases together. For
more information on UAT test plan and a sample, check out the attached
test plan document’s UAT sections.

User Acceptance Test Plan

(This is the same that you would find on our site for the QA training series
as well).
Click on below image and scroll down to find the test plan document
sample in various formats. In that template check the UAT section.

The dates, environment, actors(who), communication protocols, roles and

responsibilities, templates, results and their analysis process, entry-exit
criteria – all of this and anything else relevant will be found in the UAT test
plan. Whether the QA team is participating, partially participating or not
participating at all in the UAT, it is our job to plan this phase and make
sure everything is taken into consideration.

UAT design
The gathered acceptance criteria from the users are used in this step.
Samples could look like the following:

(These are excerpts from CSTE CBOK. This is the one of the best of the
few references available about UAT.)

User Acceptance Testing Template:

Based on the criteria, we (QA team) give them the users a list of UAT test
cases. UAT test cases are not different from out regular system test cases.
They are just a sub set since we test all of the application as opposed to
just the key functional areas.

In addition to these, the data, templates to record test results,

administrative procedures, defect logging mechanism has to be in place
before we move to the next phase.

UAT Test execution

Usually, when possible, UAT happens in a conference or war room sort of
a set up where the users, PM, QA team representatives all sit together for
a day or two and work our work through all the acceptance test cases.

Or in case of QA team performing the tests, we run the test cases on the
AUT.

Once all the tests are run and the results are in hand, the Acceptance
Decision is made. This is also called the Go/No-Go decision more
colloquially. If the users are satisfied it’s a Go, or it’s a No-go.

The reaching of the acceptance decision is typically the end of UAT phase.

Important UAT points:

1. UAT is not about the pages, fields or buttons. The underlying

assumption before even the UAT begins is that, all that basic stuff is
tested and is working fine. God forbid, the users find a bug as basic
as that – it is very bad news for the QA team.
2. UAT is about the entity that is the primary element in the business.
Let me give you an example: If the AUT is a ticketing system, the UAT is
not going to be about, searching, the menu that opens a page etc. It is
about the tickets and their reservation, the states that it can take, its
journey through the system. Another example, if the site is a car
dealership site, the focus is about the “car and its sales” not the site
really. So the core business is what is verified and validated and who
better to do it than the business owners. That’s why UAT makes the most
sense when the customer is involved to a major extent.

3. UAT is also a form of testing at its core which means there is a good
chance of identifying some bugs at this phase too. It sometimes
happens. Aside from the fact that it is a major escalation on the QA
team, the UAT bugs usually means a meeting to sit and discuss how
to handle them because following UAT there is usually no time to fix
and retest.

The decision would be either to:

• Push the go-live date, fix the issue first and then move on
• Leave the bug as is
• Consider it as a part of change request for future releases

4. UAT is classified as Alpha and Beta testing, but that classification is

not so important in the context of typical software development
projects in a service based industry.

• Alpha testing is when UAT is carried out in the software builder’s

environment and is more significant in the context of commercial off
the shelf software.
• Beta testing is when the UAT is carried out in the production
environment or the client’s environment. This is more common for
customer facing applications. The users here are the actual
customers like you and I in this context.

5. Most of the times in a regular software development project, UAT is

carried out in the QA environment if there is no staging or UAT
environment.

About the Author: This article is written by STH team member Swati S. She
is having 9+ years of experience in software testing.

What was your UAT experience? Were you on standby or did you test for
your users? Did the users find any issues? If yes, how did you deal with
them?
Share your experiences with us and let us know your comments and
questions below.

 WINK - Recently I was involved in a UAT testing where they want

“WINK” files to be uploaded with the required test cases. What do
 they mean by “wink” files ? Can anybody give me some idea.. Winks
are Flash-based animated files that appear in Windows Live
Messenger. When a user sends a Wink to a friend, the animation file
is transferred over the Internet and is displayed on the recipient’s
computer screen. Microsoft provides some Winks for free with
Windows Live Messenger and also links to third party websites
where other Winks can be purchased.

 Thanks for your explanation. I understand what you said. But I don’t
think that is what is required here. They said in the test document
that “Wink files (.htm, .swf, .js) in a compressed zip file with the
following name format .zip”. What is the meaning or explanation of
that?

 How to handle if there is defect from client in UAT?

 Very Nice Explanation on UAT Process but I would recommend the

Quality Gateways as the Prerequisite for UAT.

 Defects are part of any testing, and so is the case with UAT.

 It was really a nice article on UAT, but could you please provide
difference between UAT and SIT.

 What is the difference between User Acceptance Testing

(UAT) and User Verification Testing (UVT)?.

 What a test case look like - You missed a very important point!!
You did not describe what a test case should look like. Too
many times, I have seen test cases that provide the instructions for
how to carry out the tasks. No! Test cases must be real-life tasks
that you expect the user to perform and the tester indicates
whether or not they could figure out how to perform the task.

Wink is a screenshot capturing application. Easy to use – one touch

capturing is provided, extension for wink file is *.wnk. I’ve used it.

Wink can be created in different file formats with different extentions.

Once that file is created it can be compressed in ZIP file. It means 10MB
size of file can be compressed to smaller size for example 5 to 7 MB. And
user other hand can UNZIP or say Decompress file in original size of 10
MB.
#16 lalita
swati ‘all, client or user are non technical person then how canthey
perform the UAT testing. Please let me know
#17 Rogerio da Silva
Awesome article. I’m involved specifically on UAT tests on a new contract
role and this has refreshed my memory and helped me focus on what is
the key elements of UAT only. Thank you. ;-)
#18 SANJAY
We have performed UAT for Core Banking System of Bank. Now they need
UAT completion certificate format. If it is available as standard format,
please send me on my email address.
Thanks…
#19 Peter
“Swati S” for sure is nothing else but another Indian piece of shit
#20 Tink
#16 lalita – Most UAT business users work primarily on the GUI or going to
a shop and using a card for example. However depending on what your
testing will depend on the system and the users needed for that type of
product.
I also agree that QA should be signed off prior to accepting in UAT…
#21 Steve
Please do not use this approach. It is very, very wrong.
UAT is 100% about making sure the end user can actually use the tool to
do their jobs without any significant difficulties.
The tests are based 100% on the jobs that need to be done, and the way
they are done in prod. Pass/Fail is based on the ability to complete those
tasks.
The end users provide those scenarios and perform the testing. The test
team can help place those scenarios in a (VERY SIMPLE) template for end
user execution, and help address any defects found. However, that should
(normally) be the extent of their involvement.
-From someone with 20+years experience who has ran QA globally for
major corporations, and defined UAT for mega programs of 200+ systems
#22 Nancy
Someone recently asked me in the interview and i am looking for
answer.what methodologies do you use in UAT?

Also read => 7 Major Challenges of Successful UAT and How to Overcome
These