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Bug Severity vs. Priority in Testing With Examples

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Software Testing is undertaken essentially to detect glitches in a software application or package. Such activities are driven by the larger goal of ensuring a flawless customer experience with the end-product. However, certain issues pertaining to nomenclature remain inconclusive. The severity of a software bug and the priority assigned to such a bug connote a variety of things. The true meaning of these terms, if left unexplored, exerts a certain stress on the outcomes of Quality Assurance services.

Severity: Many Grades

This term is deployed by Software Testing professionals to denote the absolute gravity which defines an undesirable incident during the use of a software product. Every QA Company must acknowledge the severity of such an incident and assess the impact of such a glitch on product performance. In line with this, test professionals may grade severity in terms of ‘critical’ or ‘major’ or ‘minor’ or ‘low’. Certain experts aver that the assigned level of severity to a bug implies the high quality of testing practices undertaken by a Software Testing Company.

Severity: How Critical?

The QA Services offered by a Software Testing Company consider the impact of severity in broad brush strokes. They define the term as the extent to which a particular bug/defect/glitch could create an impact on the normal operation of a software application. Some instances of severity appear when an e-commerce app fails to load despite repeated inputs; a digital shopper faced with an odd situation wherein a shopping app accepts an order but cancels it after a certain interval of time.

Bug Severity vs. Priority

Severity: Critical

Glitches in software products that seriously hamper the efforts of Software Testing professionals represent critical grade of severity. Such bugs deserve the focused attention of testers who must work to attain immediate resolution. Similarly, critical bugs can result in the repeated crashing of an application, wherein testers are unable to proceed with assigned QA Services. In a similar vein, catastrophic system failures qualify for critical grade of severity. For instance, email systems that crash immediately after a user has entered credentials represent critical bugs that destroy the user experience; the QA Services offered by test professionals must remediate these immediately.

Priority

This term implies the act of prioritizing a defect based on the demands of business requirements and the severity of the defect. Priority connotes the importance (or urgency) of remediating a glitch in modern software applications. Typically, testers working in the domain of modern Software Testing services must invoke priority by viewing a malfunctioning product from the perspective of the end user. In common terms, bug priority can be assigned various values such as ‘low’ or ‘medium’ or ‘high’ or ‘immediate’. Veteran testers advocate the use of said matrix because prioritizing a bug in the correct manner helps boost the quality of the software development life cycle.

Priority: Conflict with Severity

Legacy Internet browsers typically remain behind the curve in terms of aesthetics and pure functionality. Such a scenario may spotlight the deficit in legacy browsers by rendering sub-standard views of an application. This, per se, indicates a major glitch in the code underlying the legacy browser, thereby indicating a high level of severity. However, Quality Assurance professionals may allocate a low priority to this glitch owing to the fact most Internet users update their browsers, thereby ruling out chances of mass malfunction in the display system. In view of this, the typical QA Company may not consider the glitch worthy of immediate attention at any level.

High Priority

An experienced team of Software Testing professionals may consider muddled views of a website to be a high priority target for bug remediation. Such an action finds justification since a late-edition browser would be unable to create sharp displays of a website. Hence, the code underlying the website deserves the immediate attention of QA Services professionals who must re-calibrate the visual representation of said website. Experts note that there is the lack of serious performance issues in such a scenario; however, Software Testing professionals must remediate the glitch in the interests of driving a smooth user experience.

In Conclusion

This analysis should encourage Quality Assurance engineers to consider high priority bugs at the expense of those marked high severity. This choice of action flows from the necessity of directing human empathy to the common user of digital products and services. Moreover, testers employed by a QA Company should work to develop a deep understanding of how various bugs and flaws may impact the experience of an end user. Such awareness should form the core rationale that powers the range of services that center on Quality Assurance. Additionally, product managers of a software application must work to create clear distinctions between the terms ‘severity’ and ‘priority’. Radical improvements in the scope and performance of Software Testing services would follow, and we excel in this realm as well. Connect with us to keep your applications and software bug free and of the highest quality.

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