Understanding Bug Reports

If you are new in the QA space, you may not really know what a bug report is. While this is a common term, many fail to dissect what it really is and what an effective bug report should really look like. In this blog we discuss everything you need to know about bug reports.

A bug report is a document/ record outlining defects in a software. An effective bug report should tell a developer what went wrong, specific environment where this happened and how to reproduce this issue for further diagnosis.

Priority Vs Severity

When writing a functional bug, we must first understand severity.
Simply out, severity means "How bad will the defect affect the functionality/ performance of a system?"
Not to be confused with priority which simply answers the question - How fast/urgently do we need to fix the defect?

• Severity is a technical assessment of the defects impact ranging from minor to critical issues. This is typically determined by QA engineers
• Priority on the other hand is a business-driven parameter meant to determine order in which defects should be fixed - influenced by deadlines, customer impact and strategic considerations. This is usually set by the product owner.

An effective bug report should have;

Title

This is a summary of the bug and contain necessary information to understand the defect without having to open the bug report.
This information includes;

• What happened
• Where the bug occurred
• When the bug occurred
• How the bug occurred or under which condition this was triggered

Steps to Reproduce

Document a step by step guide to reproduce the defect. This should be numbered and clear

Expected Result

Outlines what should have happened. Think of it as what should have happened if no bug existed.

Actual Result

Define what happens after the last action. This does not have to be similar to the title. However, to ensure it is effective, this should be formed using one or more sentences.

Environment used

• Indicate the environment in which this defect occurred i.e. production, sandbox, development...
• Include the browser used e.g. Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari
• Operating System e.g. Windows, Linux, MacOS
• Device used

Evidence

This includes screenshots, videos and error logs

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Common pitfalls when creating bug reports

Title

Like mentioned earlier, a bug report title should summarize the bug without the reader having to read the entire report to understand what the bug is.

• Describe what is happening not what is not happening
• Avoid statements like does not work and focus on actual behavior
• To come up with a descriptive title, put yourself in the shoes of someone who has never tested the website, who doesn't know what page you are on and what you did.

Exemplary bug titles

• Checkout does not work
• Error message is displayed on the checkout page when submitting an order ✅
• Cart page displays a 404 error
• Cart page displays a 404 error when opened by a logged-in user ✅

Steps to reproduce

• The first step should contain an indication to access the URL of the customer environment provided.

Exemplary Good Steps

1. Go to http://www.examplewebsite.com
2. Enter any search query in the top-right search bar (e.g. “San Francisco”)
3. Click on the “Search Now” button
4. Scroll down and click on "Sort by"
5. Select the option "Sort by price: High to Low"

Expected Results

• Should contain a short description, but for complex bugs, additional information is needed.

Great expected result

• The Checkout page should be loaded successfully. ✅
• The user should be redirected correctly to the Checkout page, where he should be able to add shipping and payment info and place an order.
• "T-Shirt" should be added to the cart so that the user can proceed with the order. ✅
• The product “T-Shirt” should be successfully added to the cart. The user should not encounter errors like “Error 500” and should be able to check out any items in their cart.

Actual Results

This should be precise and don't be too general

The actual and the expected results must never be just the opposite of each other.

Should include further details on top of the title such as scenario information, examples and results obtained while performing the steps to reproduce the bug.

Effective Actual Result

• "Error 500 - Internal Server error - Sorry something went wrong" is shown to the user after he tries to proceed to the Checkout page. ✅
• Error shown on the Cart page after clicking on the Checkout button.
• An "Unexpected Error" error message appears in the top right corner of the PDP, and the product is not added to the Cart. ✅
• The user cannot add a product to the Cart, an error is shown.

Environment Used

• Include only one device or browser when you are reporting the bug, and upload only attachments for it.
• If you are able to reproduce the bug in other devices or browsers, please mention this in your Actual result.