As project managers for website implementations, we oversee the user acceptance testing process (UAT) to ensure the development lifecycle is successful. Conducting UAT for your website is a critical phase in your project. For many project managers, this process can feel daunting because they must figure out all the areas that need testing and determine how extensively to test them. Additionally, they often find it challenging to identify the systems, customers, and internal resources that should participate in this testing. If you’re wondering how to start planning, I’ll share the steps I follow to get started.
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Identify All Systems Impacted
Determine all systems impacted by your project. Even if these systems or integrations are not changing due to your project, you will still need to validate that data is updating accurately and within the expected timeframe.
Some of these systems are but not limited to:
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- PIMs (Product Information Manager)
- DAMs (Digital Asset Management)
- CRMs (Customer Relationship Management)
- OMSs (Order Management Systems)
- Analytics Tools (GA4 and GTM)
- Marketing Platforms
- Payment Gateways
- 3Rd Party Search Tools
- Accessibility Tools
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Document Test Cases
After you identify the impacted systems, contact the product owners or subject matter experts for those systems to assist you in writing test cases. You can involve anyone in the process of writing test cases, including business analysts, product owners, subject matter experts, quality control engineers, and others. Start this process by outlining a step-by-step description of what the user should experience and what the end result should be. If any integrations change, the business analyst or project manager must answer questions as you write test cases, since the expected results might shift due to the project.
Pro-Tip – Write out the step-by-step approach in a document stored in a shared repository. This could be a spreadsheet on a shared drive that multiple people can access. This setup will allow team members to update the document with test cases, rather than having different versions floating around in everyone’s inboxes. It may also be easier to have separate documents for each system or major functionality you are testing. Users testing only one system or major functionality might feel confused when they look at test cases for areas they aren’t familiar with. Separating everything will help reduce this confusion.
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Begin Testing
Once you’ve received approval to begin testing, have the tester refer to the document with the test cases. As they go through each step, they can mark it as passed or failed. If they fail a step, they should provide a comment explaining why and include a screenshot if necessary.
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Prioritize Feedback
After testing is complete, review the feedback in the test case documents and set a priority for each of the failed test cases with your team’s input. These priorities can be classified as critical, high, medium, or low. Critical and high priorities indicate key steps that are showstoppers for launching the project. Assign these when key functionality severely impacts the customer or business experience and prevents users from completing their intended goals, such as placing an order or viewing incorrect information. You can assign low priority to cosmetic issues that do not hinder user engagement on your website.
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Collect Estimates
Make sure to collect estimates from your team regarding the level of effort required to address the feedback from UAT. This is important for tracking the timeline and budget for your launch. Once you’ve received the estimates, you can assign estimated completion dates based on the level of effort and available resources.
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Retest
As you resolve and review feedback from retesting, continue to prioritize it and collect estimates.
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Involve Customer Service Representatives
Once you feel your site is in a great place, invite customer service representatives or anyone in your organization who interacts with customers to test it. This will allow them to familiarize themselves with the changes and test what they interact with. If you are a B2B company, it might be beneficial to get feedback from a customer you work with consistently while you are conducting UAT for your website.
Have any other tips or ideas on how to approach conducting UAT for your website? Feel free to leave a comment! Make sure to checkout additional blogs on website project management such as Website Project Management Tips.
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