How would you prioritize these bugs, and why? [closed]

Question

Here is a hypothetical scenario for a software quality assurance (QA) logical question:

You are a QA engineer testing a new feature for a web application. The feature allows users to upload and share photos with their friends. Your testing has revealed the following bugs:

1. The photo upload button is not working on Internet Explorer 11.
2. The photo caption field is not saving user input on Safari.
3. On mobile devices, the photo upload page takes a long time to load.

You have been tasked with prioritizing these bugs for the development team to fix.

Question: How would you prioritize these bugs, and why?

Answer 1

There are several ways that you could prioritize these bugs. Here are a few options:

Priority by impact: In this approach, you would prioritize the bugs based on the impact that they have on the users of the application. For example, the photo upload button not working on Internet Explorer 11 would be a high priority, because it prevents users from uploading photos at all. On the other hand, the long load time on mobile devices might be a lower priority, because it is only a nuisance and does not prevent users from using the feature.

Priority by difficulty: In this approach, you would prioritize the bugs based on how difficult they will be for the development team to fix. For example, if the bug with the photo caption field is caused by a simple typo, it might be a lower priority than a bug that requires a more complex fix.

Priority by user group: In this approach, you would prioritize the bugs based on the importance of the affected user group. For example, if the photo upload button is not working on Internet Explorer 11, and a significant portion of your users are using that browser, that bug would be a high priority.

Ultimately, the best approach will depend on the specific needs and goals of your project.

Answer 2

Priority - Priority refers to the order in which bugs should be fixed. Bugs with higher priority may take precedence over those with lower priority when resources are available.

Priority vs severity of bugs is a question that often comes up in discussions and bug reports. Priority refers to how important the bug is to the overall functionality of the software. Severity refers to how severe the bug is in terms of how it affects users.

I use the next general guidelines for prioritizing bugs:

1. Bugs that affect core functionality or negatively affect users should be given the highest priority.
2. Bugs that are affecting a small number of users but are causing significant problems should also be given high priority.
3. Bugs that are not causing any harm but are still affecting the system or users should be given a lower priority.

In your case I would estimate it the next way.

1. The photo upload button is not working on Internet Explorer 11.

It is the most critical issue, because user can't upload photo. On the other hand, amount of users for IE11 is really small and IE 11 desktop application went out of support for certain operating systems starting June 15, 2022.

2. The photo caption field is not saving user input on Safari.

According to this statistic(MOST POPULAR WEB BROWSERS IN 2022)

• Safari - 18.7%
• Edge - 4.44 (for IE11 it will be much lower value).

It seems like big number of users could be affected by this issue. On the other hand this fix should be quite easy, so I would prioritize and fix it 1st.

3. On mobile devices, the photo upload page takes a long time to load.

This bug didn't block anything, but could significantly improve user experience and application performance. On the other hand, fixing and testing of it could take quite long time and should be treated as improvement of application.