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Defect SeverityWhat is Defect Severity?

Defect Severity determines the defects effect on the application. It represents the impact

on the business of the client. Defect Severityis totally based on how important functionalityis blocked or if that functionality functions incorrectly & accordingly add Defect Severity.

Severity means how severe it is affecting the functionality. It is totally related to the qualitystandard or devotion to standard. The severity type is defined by the Software Tester based

on the written test cases and functionality. Severity is associated with quality standards or

devotion to standard. Defect Severity is related to technical aspect of the product &decides based on how bad the bug is for the system.

Severity of defect means how big functionality is affecting of the product. Also we can sayThe Severity status is used to explain how badly the deviation is affecting the build. Basedon Bug Severity the product fixes are done.

DEFECT SEVERITY is classified into the different categories but it can vary on organization,projects, people or defect tracking tool. Here is the standard classification ofDefect

Severity:

Critical: It affects the critical functionality & cannot able to test application further.Testing cannot be started with any workaround as well.

Major: Major functionality not working but able to test application. It hasworkaround but not obvious.

Minor: Bug in Functionality but in the sub module or one under the other module.The minor feature in the module but has workaround from other module easily.

Trivial: Issues in location of the object or the look and feel issue.

Defect Severity is also denoted as S1 for Critical Severity, S2 for Major Severity, S3 forMinor Severity & S4 for Trivial Severity.

Definition of Severity

The degree of impact that a defect has on the development or operation of a component or

system.

For more details on Priority & severity difference, seeWhat is difference betweenPriority and Severity?

What is difference between Priority and

Severity?

In the market various Software management/bug tracking system are available. Thesepowerful tools allow you to enter the important information of bug which helps to conveythe exact steps of the bug & which provide the complete information to team. So developercan get an exact idea of its Severity. In the Bug Tracking the terms Priority and

Severity are used to share the importance of a bug among the team and to fix itaccordingly.

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Priority means how fast it has to be fixed. Normally talking about this,High Severity bug

are marked as High Priority bugs & its should be resolved as early as possible, but this

case is not all the time. There can be different exceptions to this rule and depending on thenature of the application it can be change from company to company. Lets take a example

to the Priority: e.g. To deal with all issues present what issues to be consider on first basedon its urgency or importance on application under test. Adding this field in while reporting

bug will help analyzing the Bug Report.

As this is common question ask in the Software Testing Interview Questions.

Priority:

Priority means how fast it has to be fixed. Priority is related to scheduling to resolve the problem. Severity means how severe it is affecting the functionality. Is largely related to Business or Marketing aspect. It is a pointer towards the

importance of the bug.

The priority status is set based on the customer requirements. Is related to technical aspect of the product. It reflects on how bad the bug is for the

system.

Priority means how urgently the issue can be fixed. Product manager is to decide the Priority to fix a bug. Based on Project Priorities the product fixes are done. The Priority status is set by the tester to the developer mentioning the time frame to

fix a defect. If High priority is mentioned then the developer has to fix it at theearliest.

Severity:

It is totally related to the quality standard or devotion to standard. Severity means how severe it is affecting the functionality.

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Severity is associated with standards. The severity type is defined by the tester based on the written test cases and

functionality.

Is related to technical aspect of the product. It reflects on how bad the bug is for thesystem.

It is totally related to the quality standard or devotion to standard. Severity means how big functionality is affecting of the product. The Test Engineer can decide the severity level of the bug. Based on Bug Severity the product fixes are done. Also we can say The Severity status is used to explain how badly the deviation is

affecting the build.

The severity is assigned by tester. Based on seriousness of the bug severity is assigned todefect. It can be divided into four categories:

Show Stopper: 4 Cannot able to test application further.

Major Defect: 3 Major functionality not working but able to test application.

Minor Defect: 2 Bug in Functionality but in the sub module or one under the othermodule.Cosmetic: 1 Issues in location of the object or the look and feel issue.

Let discuss few examples of Priority & Severity from High to Low:

High Priority & High Severity:

1. All show stopper bugs would be added under this category (I mean to say testershould log Severity as High, to set up Priority as High is Project managers call) ,means bug due to which tester is not able to continue with theSoftware Testing,

Blocker Bugs.2. Lets take an example of High Priority & High Severity, Uponlogin to system Run

time error displayed on the page, so due to which tester is not able to proceed the

testing further.

High Priority & Low Severity:

1. On the home page of the companys web site spelling mistake in the name of thecompany is surely a High Priority issue. In terms of functionality it is not breaking

anything so we can mark as Low Severity, but making bad impact on the reputationof company site. So it highest priority to fix this.

Low Priority & High Severity:

1. The download Quarterly statement is not generating correctly from the website &user is already entered in quarter in last month. So we can say such bugs as HighSeverity, this is bugs occurring while generating quarterly report. We have time to

fix the bug as report is generated at the end of the quarter so priority to fix the bugis Low.

2. System is crashing in the one of the corner scenario, it is impacting majorfunctionality of system so the Severity of the defect is high but as it is corner

scenario so many of the user not seeing this page we can mark it as Low Priority byproject manager since many other important bugs are likely to fix before doing highpriority bugs because high priority bugs are can be visible to client or end user first.

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Low Priority & Low Severity:

1. Spelling mistake in the confirmation error message like You have registeredsuccess instead of successfully, success is written.

2. Developer is missed remove cryptic debug information shortcut key which is useddeveloper while developing he application, if you pressing the key combination

LEFT_ALT+LEFT_CTRL+RIGHT_CTRL+RIGHT_ALT+F5+F10 for 1 mins (funny na).

It is where rare scenario where user can hold the key for such long period of time so bugshould be marked as low priority.