In the testing process there is a ‘Bug Tracking’ term known as “Priority” and “Severity”. This term is used while fixing the bug.
In testing process the priority means how fast this bug needs to get fixed, the high severity bugs are marked as high priority and should be resolved as soon as possible.
When a bug is marked as High priority it shows how much it has a bad effect on the system. This status is set by the tester to declare the time frame in which it should get fixed at the earliest.
The severity can be divided into four categories:
Category 4: Show Stopper – Not able to continue the test.
Category 3: Major Defect – Major functionality not working but able to test application.
Category 2: Minor Defect –Bug in Functionality.
Category 1: Cosmetic issue –The look and feel issue.
Her I am discussing few levels of Priority & Severity from High to Low:
High Priority & High Severity:
The show stopper bugs comes under this category it means due to this bug the test cannot be proceed to next level. Example: Here is an example of High Priority & High Severity i.e. when a tester trying to login to the system and got a ‘Runtime error’ so he will not able to test the rest of the functionality of the application/website.
High Priority & Low Severity:
This can be explained as on the client website tester found a spelling mistake in client’s company name or a wrong grammatical phrase. So it may not be a functionality braking bug but surely it is bad for the client company reputation. So this will be at high priority to get it fixed.
Low Priority & High Severity:
In clients application the quarterly statement is not generating but the user is entered in quarter this month only so it can be said that the bug is High severity but occurring in quarterly report so we have time to get it fix because next quarterly report will be print at end of this quarter, so the priority can be marked as low to get it fix.
Low Priority & Low Severity:
In this category the spelling mistake and confirmation messages are not written properly or any image. These types of defects fall under this category.