Putting the "User" back into UAT

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©equinox limited 2006

Putting the “User” back into UAT

An agile approach to User Acceptance Testing

GOVIS 2007

1.30 p.m. Thursday 10 May 2007

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Introduction

Andrew McDowell, Senior Consultant, Equinox Limited What is UAT?

The benefits of UAT

The barriers to UAT

UAT the agile way

Dr. Gordon Paynter, Technical Analyst, Innovation Centre, National Library of New Zealand

Case study – UAT at the National Library of New Zealand

Conclusion

Questions

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What is User Acceptance Testing (UAT)?

A software testing activity performed by end users to Test the functionality of the system before it is deployed

Determine if the system meets user needs

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The benefits of UAT

To gain confidence before deployment

To obtain evidence the system is fit for purpose

Users have domain knowledge

Users gain application experience (training)

User buy in

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The barriers to UAT

Not sure how to go about it

The cost of freeing up people and resources

Belief that there are no suitably skilled staff to do it

Already agreed to a signoff timeframe that is too short

Belief that the system has been rigorously tested by the vendor or development team

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UAT the agile way

We recommend an agile approach to UAT Leverage outputs of the requirements analysis process

Minimise documentation

Traditional approaches Exploratory testing (ad-hoc)

Structured approach

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UAT the agile way

Getting started Select testers from the intended user group

Establish defect management

Planning Base your test cases on your Use Case documentation

Focus on key data elements

Document enough to confirm coverage of requirements

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UAT the agile way

Execution Work iteratively

Be systematic

Focus on failures

Elaborate your tests if necessary to ensure they are repeatable

Wrapping up Listen to the testers

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Case study – UAT for the WCT

The Web Curator Tool is a tool for managing the selective web harvesting process.

It is designed for use in libraries by non-technical users. Development was a joint project of the National Library of New Zealand

and the British Library.

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Case study – UAT for the WCT

What Equinox did Requirements analysis and Use Case documentation Test strategy and test plan templates

What the software developer did Wrote the software

What the National Library did Project management Wrote test scenarios based on use cases Tested the software

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Test case documents

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Results document

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Lessons learned

Swapping between scenario spreadsheet and result spreadsheet is time consuming (and annoying)

The extent of re-test depends on the number and size of releases

Detail-oriented completists make good testers

Add new test cases (or the same cases with new data)

Good evidence to support signoff

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Lessons applied

For the next project Combine test cases and test results onto single sheet

Use an even more iterative development process

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Conclusion – Overcoming the barriers

Not sure how to go about it It is simple and straightforward

The cost of freeing up people and resources Focus on minimising peoples time and maximising results

Belief that there are no suitably skilled staff to do it Actually, testers don’t need previous testing experience

Already agreed to a signoff timeframe that is too short Test cases and data prepared before the test period begins

Belief that the system has been rigorously tested by the vendor or development team Less reliance on vendor/dev team as you’ll have your own evidence

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www.equinox.co.nz/events Presentation and Excel templates

available to download

More information – www.equinox.co.nz\news

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Documents

Putting the "User" back into UAT