Introduction to How to Write a Bug Report
A software bug occurs when an application does not work the way it is supposed to function. Most issues or bugs made by system architects, designers, or developers.
QA uses bug tracking to monitor and report errors that occur as they develop and test their application. Bug tracking is the process of recording and monitoring bugs or issues during software testing and development.
It is also known as defect tracking or issue tracking. There may be hundreds or thousands of defects in each software app. Each needs to be evaluated, monitored, and prioritized.
In certain cases, bugs may need to be tracked over a long period of time. Bug reports play an important role in bug management.
Although they may seem less important, when it comes to bug reports or requests, incomplete information may be a costly mistake for your client.
Thus, getting a bug report right in all terms and the first time around is extremely crucial. Although modern QA teams are equipped with many bug management tools, yet they need to have hands-on skills to write a good bug report for better quality products.
What Makes a Good Bug Report?
There are several ways to write a good report. Chances are high that there may be templates for bug reports depending on the product that developers want to file a bug for.
If information is available then it should include the complete version. Sometimes the bug they are going to report has already been fixed in a newer version. In such cases, there are several templates available otherwise including the following information will also be helpful:
How to Reproduce:
It is essential to provide a step by step description of how someone else other than the bug reporter can reproduce the behavior he experienced.
Expected Behavior:
What behavior did the developer expect while performing the above step? This is an important aspect that needs to be eliminated that the developer had a wrong expectation of the given functionality. Things like this appear every now and then.
Observed Behavior:
A bug reporter should also describe how the application behaved differently than the expected behavior. Here one can explain how a certain thing didn’t work or which behavior motivated them to file a bug report.
Include all Log Files:
So depending on the type of the product, a bug report should include all the files available, and if the developer knows where these files are located.
For certain products, it may be possible to get some detailed information to find a log file. It could also be possible that they simply do not have access to log files but certainly, they will not be asking for them.
All the above guidelines should help you in writing better bug reports that can save both time and money for a QA team.
Since the release cycles are becoming shorter, organizations need faster software testing solutions to meet quality at speed.
Thus, it is important for teams to use the right bug management tools. It is equally important to focus on writing a good bug report that can help other team members in understanding the bugs in detail.
Conclusion
Software testing is essential to isolate and mitigate errors. An effective QA process can uncover many defects at once and QA teams are required to manage all of them together.
By integrating bug tracking into the testing workflow improves efficiency by helping testers prioritize, monitor, and report on the status of each error. Bug management helps ensure that bugs found in a system actually get fixed.
Tracking tools not only provide a way to ensure a complete follow-up but also provide valuable metrics. Depending on the tools being used, the team can relate the defects to change code, tests, or other data that will allow for traceability or analysis on the defect trends.
If a certain module is riddled with defects, it may be time for the QA team to review and rewrite that module. Once all the tasks have been processed and sent to the development, it can be fixed because they have been provided with all the detail they need to get things straight to the cause of the problem and rectify it.
Simply knowing how to write a bug report will not only just help to save time and money, it will also help you to serve your users and internal stakeholders in an efficient manner.
