Acceptance testing is the activity that is performed by the representative of a development team and also performed by the client at his site. Acceptance test is a level of software testing process where a system is tested for its acceptability and conformance to requirements.
The purpose of the acceptance test is to evaluate the system’s compliance with business requirements and assess whether it is acceptable for delivery. Acceptance test is the final stage of testing that is performed on a system before the system is delivered to live environment.
For example when manufacturing a desktop computer: the monitor, keyboard, mouse are produced separately and all the parts are assembled together. An acceptance testing is performed so as to confirm that the desktop computer is ready to be made available to the end-user.
Typically all the components of the computer- mouse, keypad, CPU, Monitor are all tested individually and together in all permutations and combinations to identify any possible failure which has not been detected and addressed. A detailed test case list will be prepared for this before conducting the testing. It is usually done from the perspective of a customer or end-user of a product or service.
Acceptance testing are generally performed as “black box test” which means that the tester uses specified inputs into the system and verifies that the resulting outputs are correct without the knowledge of the system.
Typical Forms Of Acceptance Testing
- User acceptance test – User acceptance testing that verifies the fitness for use of the system by the user.
- Operational testing- Which is the acceptance of the system by the system administrators. This testing includes testing of backup, restore, disaster recovery, and also maintenance tasks.
Purpose Of Acceptance Test
- The purpose of acceptance testing is for the users to verify that the system or changes meet their original requirements.
- The sponsors, users and any other participating stakeholders should be briefed on their roles and responsibilities during this test phase.
Thus Acceptance testing is a critical phase of any software development because it verifies the whole purpose of the product or software. Planning, developing the test cases and executing it without any pitfalls is the key for a successful Acceptance testing.