How to write a bug report defect report with an example
Here’s a step by step guide on how to write a bug report /defect report.
First, we need to ask ourselves, why are we writing a bug report?
- So there is a record of the behaviour
- So that the bug gets fixed - for the bug to get fixed we need to provide clear enough information so the developer can act upon it and the product owner/manager etc can decide how to prioritise this bug and if it should get fixed.
Keep this in mind when you are writing bugs report.
Here’s a breakdown of field/area that is in most test management tools used to track bugs:
Title:
- A brief description of the problem. In some projects there are naming conventions to the title e.g. an acronym may be at the start dictating the area of the product
- A reader should be able to know what the problem is by just reading the title
Description/Summary:
I find it’s useful to break this down into two parts:
Actual Result: What did I see/what happened
Expected Result: What was I expecting?/ What was supposed to happen?
You can also add additional notes on whether you are able to reproduce the issue consistently, but even if you can’t then you should still write the bug report, but it’s even more important to note it’s an intermittent issue.
Steps to replicate:
A step by step guide to someone on how to replicate the bug.
The developer will probably use this to see if they can replicate the bug and investigate it.
Operating System; Browser; Hardware
What Operating System did you see the bug in?
What browser?
Hardware?
Attach screenshots/videos
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