All About Severity & Priority With Real Time Examples

Severity

It is an indicator of the impact of the defect on the software. For example, let us assume you have a web application where the user clicks on a rarely used link and it crashes. Then, the defect is said to be having high severity even though the chances of the user clicking on the link are rare.

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Different Severity Levels

• Critical: If a defect causes the termination or complete shut-down of the application, then it is “Critical”.
• Major: If the defect results in the termination of the system but there exist one or more alternative methods to achieve the desired results or use the system, then the defect is said to have the level “Major”.
• Moderate: The bug will be marked as “Moderate” when the defect in the system does not cause the program to terminate but produces results that are not correct or inconsistent.
• Minor: A defect is marked as “Minor” when the usability or functionality of the system is not affected much but must be fixed. The results are obtained by small corrections and there is no break-down of the system caused by the defect.
• Cosmetic: Defects that are related to the look and feel of the system are given the severity “Cosmetic”.

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What is Priority?

Priority is considered from the customer’s point of view. Priority indicates how soon the defect needs to be fixed by the developer. Priority is set by the product manager/customer and it determines the time frame given to the developer to fix the bug.

Different Levels of Priority

• Low: A defect that can be deferred or fixed in the later stages once the higher priority ones are fixed, as it is not serious from the requirement point of view is of low priority.
• Medium: A defect that needs to be fixed during the normal course of development activity is given the status as “Medium”. Such defects occur when a particular feature cannot be used the way it should be because of some environmental issue, defect in the program, or some code that has to be added. Usually, these defects are fixed and delivered to the testing team as a part of a new release.
• High: Those defects that need to be fixed as soon as possible so that the testing team can continue with the testing are said to be of high priority. The core functionality fails as a result of such defects and the system cannot be tested or used until the defect is fixed.

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Who decides the Severity and Priority of a Defect?

The organization decides the standards regarding who sets the priority and severity of a defect. However, in most cases, the severity type of a defect is set by the tester based on the product functionality and the written test cases. The priority is decided by the product manager based on customer requirements.

Severity vs Priority

Common scenarios related to Severity and Priority

• Consider a defect that does not permit the tester to continue with the testing at any cost or causes the application to crash. Even the basic/main functionality does not work as expected. Such a defect is considered High Priority with High Severity.
• A defect that is visible to the customer but is not likely to affect the functionality of the app as an issue with the logo or a spelling mistake is considered a High Priority defect with Low Severity.
• A defect that causes the system to crash and makes the system unusable but happens only when the user clicks on any link that is not used normally are considered as defects with High Severity but Low Priority.
• A cosmetic error that is not visible during normal use is considered as a Low Priority defect with Low Severity.

Understanding with examples

Let us try to understand severity and priority by considering an e-commerce application like amazon.com

Example of High Severity and Low Priority

Suppose the tester clicks on the “Privacy Notice” hyperlink at the bottom of the amazon.com homepage and the page is not displayed. This defect will be of high severity because the functionality is not working. The priority is low because people do not normally spend time reading the privacy notice.

High Severity and  High Priority

You log in to your amazon.com account, add items to the cart and click the “Proceed to Checkout” button. You make the payment and the system crashes. This defect makes the whole buying functionality unusable and so the severity is high.

The basic purpose of amazon.com is to buy and sell products and most of the customers are affected by this. So, this defect is of high priority which must be fixed immediately for the buying process to work.

Low Severity and  High Priority

Suppose, that in the amazon.com website, the logo is displayed as ”amazn.com” with the letter “o” missing. This defect does not affect the buying/selling or any other functionality in any way.

So, the severity of this defect is low. But, a mistake in the company logo affects the brand identity and impacts the user experience. So, the defect is of high priority.

Low Severity and  Low Priority

Suppose the tester clicks on the “Conditions of Use” hyperlink at the bottom of the amazon.com homepage. If there is an alignment issue in the text displayed or if there is a spelling mistake in the content displayed, the defect is said to be of low priority because people rarely read this page and it does not impact the user experience. The severity is also low because the functionality of the application is not affected.

Summary

These are two important terms that are associated with a defect that helps in the right classification of the defect. These two terms help in an efficient defect tracking process and reduce the overall defect turnaround time.