Difference between UI and UX in software testing

I lately noticed that there is some confusion going on around the software testing in regards to user facing parts of the system. Testers mention that they are planning to “run some UI testing” or others speak about “strange UX on that system”. I would like to spent some time today and emphasizing the main 3 differences between UI and UX and how we are testing each one, and by whom.

But let’s start from the beginning what is UI and what is UX?

UI is a User Interface, usually referring to anything that can be visually seen by the user when interacting with the system. That will include colors, page design, logos, element shapes, etc.

UX is a User eXperience, usually referring to anything that can be done by the user when interacting with the system. That will include what can be clicked, what can be done, what will be returned back to user and in what way, etc.

With that understanding we can now define the 3 most important identification points for each one

UI - User interface

Visual Design
Branding
Layout

UX - User experience

User Stories
Personas
Usability

From the above we can clearly see that for a functional tester there is really nothing to test in the UI section and a lot to do in the UX. While the Content, Marketing and Design departments of the software product will have to spent considerable amount of time to verify UI elements compliance with branding guidelines, proper resolution, visual presents and so on. Those need to be tested in different environments and resolution to verify proper presents on all expected devices, all that without any emphasis on functionality of each component but mostly on how well it looks and feels on the screen.

On the other hand functionality of each visual component will have to be covered by proper testing department to verify that it all according to expectation and matching the pre-defined user stories for each scenario. Usability of the components usually is being tested by the representatives of the users, and the business defining the possible user personas that will be using the system and proper testing will be required to verify that those pre-defined personas can accomplish all the required tasks on the new system in an acceptable manner.

Comments

What is Quality Assurance?

What is Quality Assurance (QA) in the software development world? This one will be the most popular question,with the widest variety of answers, which by its own gives me a good reason to answer it. So, I will start with dictionary(Wikipedia) definition: Quality assurance, or QA (in use from 1973) for short, is the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service or facility to maximize the probability that minimum standards of quality are being attained by the production process. QA cannot absolutely guarantee the production of quality products . By large this is a nice definition, though it has two issues that need to be discussed further more: 1.minimum standard of quality. 2.quality of a product. But before we go there let me say something about "assurance"

Proper QA estimation in Agile project

Today, I want to chat about a common issue in Agile development – story point estimation. You see, it's easy to get caught up in estimating how long a feature will take to develop and forget about the crucial Quality Assurance (QA) effort. It happens to often: your team is in the middle of sprint planning. New user stories are being discussed, and estimations are given, but there's a catch. You've estimated the development time perfectly, but you've barely even glanced at how much effort QA will take. Why? Agile talks about Development Team and you mistakenly thought that it is all about DEVELOPMENT. Sound familiar? Trust me; it's a more common scenario than you might think. So, what's the big deal? Well, when you leave QA effort out of the equation, several not-so-great things can happen: Vilocity can suffer: You might think you can squeeze more into a sprint than is humanly possible, setting your team up for disappointment and overcommitment. Quality can de...

What is the velocity of an Agile scrum methodology?

Let's discuss some of the important measurements in Agile, and that is the Velocity of the Scrum team work. Based on Wikipedia definition Velocity is " ...the rate of change of its position with respect to a frame of reference and is a function of time...", which when transferred to the scrum world can be summarized as: The amount of work that the scrum team completed in a single measure of time - in a sprint. How we Calculate Velocity? Velocity is actually a very simple to calculate, it is done but totaling the number of story points of fully completed user stories from the sprint backlog. So if a current sprint included 4 user stories: 2 with 8 story points each, one with 3 story points and one with 32 story points. and by the end of the sprint the 32 one was not fully done the velocity calculation will be: 8+8+3=19 Note: the 32 story points are not part of the velocity calculation as this user story was not completed. What Velocity is used for? The v...

QA Bean

Search This Blog