What is UAT Testing in Software Testing?

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is an important phase in the software testing process, typically conducted as the final stage before the software is released to its intended market. The first premise of UAT is to verify that the software actually conforms to what the end-users will want, putting its performance to the test in real-world situations. Users or clients perform the testing to confirm that the system does what it is supposed to do and works correctly.

UAT is important because it confirms how well the software can carry out day-to-day operations and business processes. Whereas the other types of testing, such as unit testing, integration testing, and system testing, see testing as verification by finding bugs, acceptance testing looks at validating the end-to-end business flow.

UAT ensures that the features of software are meeting the expectations of users and business requirements, which act as an insurance policy against deliveries of poorly made or ineffective items. The work would need creation of test cases which adhere to user acceptance criteria, execution of those tests like they would be executed in production, and some feedback from users, which would help in making the last-minute adjustments to go live.

The effectiveness of the UAT depends upon its extensive coverage and grooming according to user expectations. It is performed just before the software is delivered to ensure that bugs were not previously uncovered in the earlier phase, like usability issues or feature omission.