UAT Guide: Everything You Need to Know About User Acceptance Testing, Part 2 (Functional Testing)

Team Construct Digital
13 Jun 2018

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As a continuation to the UAT Guide: Everything You Need to Know About User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Part 1 (Design & Usability), this article will cover important pointers on functional tests that you should look out for during User Acceptance Testing (UAT).


But before we dive into that, let’s talk about test plans and test cases. It’s during functional testing that we rely heavily on test cases passing the necessary requirements in order to deem the product good to go.

 

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What Are Test Plans and Why Are They Important?

A test plan documents a checklist of specific design and functionalities you should look out for when conducting a UAT. It lists out test cases—a set of condition or variables—that the UAT team will use to determine if the website satisfies the requirements set. A test plan enables you to set up a more controlled testing environment during UAT, thus providing more efficient staging.

Testing is NOT just about passing a test case. Instead, it should inspire you to probe further and ask intelligent questions as you look out for problems.

 

What to Look Out For During Functional Testing

  • Test that your website works across all browsers and devices
    • Ensure that your website is working across popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and most especially on the different versions of Internet Explorer (version 9, 10, Edge). Here’s a recent browser trend as of April 2018 by W3school.com
      • Chrome - 78.6%
      • Firefox - 11.2 %
      • Edge/IE - 3.9%
      • Safari - 3.3%
      • Opera - 1.5%
    • Check that your website is working well on mobile devices and web browsers. More than 40% of online transactions are now done on mobile, with 90% of B2B buyers reporting they are likely to buy from the same vendor whose site gives a superior mobile experience. Check out the following mobile devices usage trend as of April 2018 by W3school.com
      • Andriod - 6.21%
      • iOS - 1.32%
      • Windows - 0.16%
  • Test all web forms. Web forms are used by businesses for collecting user information on their potential buyers. These are also used by consumers to reach out to businesses for questions, feedback, and requests for quotes.
    • Ensure that each field is validated correctly. Input data should match the correct values of each field.
    • Check that the user input in the forms is captured correctly back-end.
    • Look out for these when you’re testing web forms:
      • For forms that adjust its questions according to end-consumers input, ensure that pages reflect the correct set of questions according to their input.
      • For forms that initiate an action, i.e. confirmation email, updating of user data, or sending of files, ensure that the right action is initiated.
      • For forms that collect user data and passwords, ensure that they are properly encrypted for user-protection and confidentiality.
      • Payment forms need to be within an SSL environment when receiving sensitive information as input.
      • For forms that initiate an update in user data, ensure that there is a security plan in place to avoid user accounts are protected from theft.
  • Test all hyperlinks and related links.
    • Look for broken links and test all outgoing links within the information pages.
    • Test internal links that jump to other pages within the site.
    • Look for pages that lead to broken links, and make sure these are updated to keep the user flow seamless.
    • Ensure that hyperlink styles do not go “missing” by checking the right colour being used against the site’s background.

 

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  • Test your sessions/cookies.
    • Look for pages that have a change in state, i.e. after user-login, and ensure that the session is captured and displays the correct view to acknowledge login.
    • Test that cookies are properly encrypted.
    • Check that your Add To Cart information is retained according to your session/cookies.
  • Ensure that your website is ready for measuring.
    • Check that trackers codes, i.e. Google Analytics, Facebook pixels are properly installed. Don’t miss out on capturing important information that tracking tools provide. For example, Google Analytics can give you a profile of your visitors—their age, gender, where they are from, their lifestyle and the type of devices they use to get on your site. It also allows you to track pages that are most visited by your users, which in turn you can put to good use.

Functional testing could have a long list of test cases depending on how your website will be used. The more hardworking your website is in how it interacts with consumers, the longer and more prepared you should be in anticipating for things to go wrong. How your website behaves in its entirety depends heavily on the functionalities of your website. A faulty website is equivalent, if not more, to an ugly website.

 

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This is the fourth piece from our User Acceptance Testing Series, where we talk about the pivotal role of UAT and its importance in developing your web products. Subscribe to our newsletter below to keep updated on future articles coming out.

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