User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Survey Results

The software development community has always been about sharing, collaborating, and learning to drive innovation and grow the practice.

This approach brings many benefits to the software development lifecycle, ushering in new methodologies, new tools, and new testing standards and best practices.

To continue this collaboration, TestMonitor polled the software development community to learn how they approach user acceptance testing (UAT), understand common hurdles throughout the quality assurance (QA) process, and collect best practices to share with others.

The following is a summary of the results from the survey and the best practices and takeaways that respondents wanted to share.

In fall 2021, TestMonitor polled professionals from across the software testing field, including test and QA managers, IT project managers, engineers, and developers.

There were more than 40 respondents from a range of industries, including retail, healthcare, entertainment, financial services, and telecommunications. They all share the common task of developing software for customers inside and outside their organization.

Here is the breakdown of respondents by industry:

Respondents represent organizations from around the world, including:

• 68 percent from Europe
• 19 percent from North America
• 4 percent from Asia
• 4 percent from South America
• 2 percent from Africa

Respondents are also responsible for testing across different types of software:

• 51 percent test mobile applications
• 64 percent test enterprise applications
• 74 percent test web-based applications

When asked what drives the respondent’s organization to pursue UAT, 70 percent noted that testing is used to build the best product for their audience. About 15 percent use testing to collect end-user feedback and ensure compliance.

Functional Testing

Despite the growing awareness of automated testing, survey respondents still use manual testing when evaluating their software’s performance against functional tests.

In fact, 96 percent of respondents use manual testing to run functional tests. Just under half (49 percent) use automated testing to aid their functional tests.

Non-Functional Testing

For non-functional testing, 45 percent of respondents manually run scripts for usability, load, and security tests, whereas 28 percent run these tests with automated testing tools.

The Frequency of UAT 

Interestingly, there was wide variability in the frequency with which respondents perform UAT during their projects or cycles.

UAT is not just one single thing. It is a set of tools that encompass several steps and benchmarks.

Notably, of those surveyed, 66 percent perform UAT at least once a month.

The involvement of end users is a big part of UAT, but the frequency with which respondents do so varies.

When asked how they involve end users in their UAT efforts, there was a wide range of responses:

• 40% always involve end users
• 15% regularly involve end users 
• 26% occasionally involve end users
• 19% never involve end users 

Of those that involve end users in their UAT, 75 percent involve less than 10 end users, 19 percent involve between 11-25 end users, and 6 percent include more than 25.

The Most Challenging Aspect of UAT

Respondents shared which aspect of UAT is the most challenging for their team, and two-thirds said it is the test design and planning phases. Actually running the tests is the biggest challenge for 15 percent of the respondents, and 19 percent noted that analyzing the test results is their biggest hurdle.

The Quality of UAT

Despite the challenges in both involving end users and designing and running UAT, most respondents still believe that the overall quality of their approach is effective.

Of those surveyed, about 48 percent rated the quality of their current UAT a seven or above, with 10 being very satisfied. About 38 percent said they are moderately satisfied, and 11 percent claimed to be very dissatisfied.