Bug Reports: How to write a Better Bug Report

In Software Testing Bug reports are the reporting of software application bugs to the developer so that it gets fixed. Practically, a bug report comes after the test cases have been carried out by a tester, and a bug was detected. Defect writing is very important in the software testing lifecycle, but it’s less practiced, nowadays. It’s easy for anyone to write bug reports, but a good and effective bug report requires extra skills. Hence, if a bug report is well written and effective, the chances of it been fixed increases.

How to Write a Bug Report: Good bug report should be include



Numbered — it should have a unique number so that it can be easily identified.

Specific— it should be clear and concise and should not leave any necessary detail out.

Reproducible— if a developer sees a bug report as irreproducible, it will never get fixed. The process to reproduce the bug should be described step by step.

Should Have Expected Result and Actual Result.



You may also take screenshots of the page where the failure occurred to highlight the defect. In writing a better bug report, you should use suggestive tones to the developer and do not assume that the developer a mistake so you use harsh words or commanding tone…The bug report should state clearly where the bug was detected so that it can easily be reproduced by the reader. Also, in reporting bugs, you have a check for duplicate bugs with tools like Bugzilla, therefore, if a bug has been reported, they might be no need for you to report it. Bugs should be reported in meaningful simple words and separately. It doesn’t if they are closely related issues; they should be reported separately.



Reporting a Bug

In reporting a bug, this the basic format to do so. Although, they may depend on the bug report tool you are using or if you’re reporting manually.



Reporter: Your name and your email address.

Product Version: You state the product/module in which you found the bug and version

Component: The components of the product where the bug was found. You state all the Operating System where bug was found e.g Windows, Linux, etc. You state the Platform as well e.g MAC, PC, etc

Priority: Priority is often titled from range P1 to P5. P1 means ‘fix the bug quickly’ and P5 means ‘fix it when you have time’

Severity: Is the level of defect which may be blocker, critical, major, minor, trivial, enhancement.

Status: Whether it’s a new bug, fixed, verified, etc

Assign To: Attach the email the developer if you know who is responsible for the software.

URL: URL of the page where the actual bugs occur.

Summary: The summary of the bug report is in 60 words.

Description: This where you state and describe the bug, and the type if need be.



Tools for Bug Reporting

Among the tools that will be mentioned all this post include but tracking tools, project management tools, coding integrations tool. Few of the tools you can for bug reports include Bugzilla, Bugherd, JIRA, Marker, Stryka, BugHost, Sitter, Unfuddle and many more others. All these tools provide an interface that entertains a wide range of tech enthusiasts to make a bug report.

Conclusion

In this article, we just describe how software testers can improve their bugs reporting so follow these guidelines to keep your bug reports well-formatted. If you want to discuss anything more, You can talk to software testing experts

