What is a Bug?

Before moving forward let’s understand first “WHAT IS A BUG?”

According to Wikipedia a software bug (or just a bug) can be defined as:

A software bug is an error, flaw, failure or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways.

In short a software, the bug is something which is not working as expected.

WHAT IS BUG REPORT?

Now let’s jump on “WHAT IS BUG REPORT?”

The bug report is a collection of information by which either person can reproduce it easily.

  1. Unique bug number: Assign unique bug number to each bug report. It will help to find whenever needed.
  2. Bug Title: The title should describe the problem easily. It is a first thing anyone read often than any other part of the bug. A good way to think about bug titles are to use the PAL system: [P]roblem [A]ction [L]ocation.

This means that a title must answer 3 questions:

What is the problem?

What action must the user perform to trigger the problem?

Where does the problem occur?

  1. Reporter: Your name and email address.
  2. Product/URL: In which product you found this bug. It may include App name, Site url
  3. Version: The product version if any.
  4. Platform: Mention the hardware platform where you found this bug. The various platforms like ‘PC’, ‘MAC’, ‘HP’, ‘Sun’ etc.
  5. Operating system: Mention all operating systems where you found the bug. Operating systems like Windows, Linux, Unix, SunOS, Mac OS. Mention the different OS versions also if applicable like Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, etc.
  6. Priority: When bug should be fixed? Priority is generally set from P1 to P5. P1 as “fix the bug with highest priority” and P5 as ” Fix when time permits”.
  7. Severity: This describes the impact of the bug.

Types of Severity:

  • Blocker: No further testing work can be done.
  • Critical: Application crash, Loss of data.
  • Major: Major loss of function.
  • Minor: minor loss of function.
  • Trivial: Some UI enhancements.
  • Enhancement: Request for a new feature or some enhancement in the existing one.
  1. Status: When you are logging the bug in any bug tracking system then by default the bug status is ‘New’. Later on, bug goes through various stages like Fixed, Verified, Reopen, Won’t Fix etc.
  2. Assign To: If know the name of the developer who will be working on it then assign them else assign to Project manager so they can assign to an appropriate person.
  3. Description: A detailed description of the bug.

Use following fields for description field:

  • Reproduce steps: Clearly mention the steps to reproduce the bug.
  • Expected result: How the application should behave on above-mentioned steps.
  • Actual result: What is the actual result on running above steps i.e. the bug behaviour .

These are the important steps in bug report. You can also add the “Report type” as one more field which will describe the bug type.

  1. Attachment: It may include Screenshot, Video and Crash log as per bug type.

Conclusion

No doubt that your bug report should be a high-quality document.

Focus on writing good bug reports and spend some time on this task because this is the main communication point between the tester, developer and the manager. Writing a good bug report is the primary responsibility of any tester.

Your effort towards writing a good bug report will not only save the resources of the company but also create a good relationship between you and the developers.

For better productivity write a better bug report.

Note: As per client/project the bug report may change.

 

Author – Garima Malik

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