Report a BUG in Effective Way…
A software, website or application without bug or bug free is impossible but if we want to develop software with minimal bug, we should report bugs in right and effective direction. So we can develop a better software and application with minimal bugs with the help of bug report. We should try to report a bug with proper instructions so that developers can easily understand the bug. Bug report is a better medium to report the bug in effective way.
Many times developers do not find the bug on his or her own systems which is reported by software tester. In this case software tester should show each steps which followed at the time of testing. A bug may have many types like functionality is not working properly, hanging, crashing etc.
Many times if the tester does not report the bug with proper indication, developer cancels bug and mention’s that it could not be reproduced. In this case software tester should mention all steps which he/she followed in getting bug, so that developer can easily understand and fix the bug within time duration. Don’t skip any step at the time of producing a bug, do not create multiple bugs even if they have same behavior are some points which are needed to be kept in mind. Software tester, also, should be descriptive that what was fixed in the bug and why was it happening, so tester can check it rigorously.
Software tester should write the version of the product if available, and also mention operating system such as “Windows xp”, “Windows7” and browser where the bug was produced. Number of times browser behaviors are different so this may cause the problems and misunderstanding between developer’s and tester. For example, a tester tests software/website on Mozilla Firefox and found bug and reported to the developer by using bug report without indicating the browser name in report. If developer tests the bug on Chrome browser and could not reproduce it, he may mark it cancel. This type of reporting wastes the time of developer in investigating the issues.
At the time of writing bug report, tester should mention the priority of the bug. Mentioning which bug is important or urgent, helps the developer in fixing them in a proper step by step manner. Try to maintain indication like P1, P2….Pn in bug report. So that developers can knows the priority of the bug and fix according to priority.
Table shows the format of bug report
Tester should provide the URL with bug and any information related to it, that helps developers to understand it easily and know from where bug generated and what may be the issue causing it.
Writing bug report is useful and important as it creates good communication between developers, testers and managers. Due to bug report everyone knows about the progress of the product. Tester should always keep the manager/lead in CC at the time of sending reports to developers.
A bug report, should also mention formats like unique number of bug, proper description of bug, name of the reporter, operating system name, browser name, version, date & time of bug which occurred, expected result, actual result and status like active, re-open, canceled, fixed or pending. The status of new bug reports should be active.
Always read the bug report carefully and verify all the points for effectiveness of bug report before sending it.
