If Testers are not good at filing bugs then many serious issues can get unnoticed and ‘Rejected’ as the Developer looking at the Bug report finds it hard to figure out the Bug.

Following are few checklists that can be kept in mind while reporting bugs.

I. Its All In A Title – A bug should be easily identifiable through its Title. Keep it short and crisp yet descriptive.

II. Keep It Simple – Keep your description simple and yet understandable. Do not use sophisticated terms for which the developer has to literally follow a dictionary.

III. Tell Steps To Reproduce – Its just like story telling. Write the steps you followed to find the bug, if necessary add examples to strengthen the importance of a bug. Its a good practice to divide the story into ‘Actual’ and ‘Expected’ behavior.

IV. Provide Links And Screenshots – Take screenshot(s), label and decribe it showing exactly where the bug is, its good to provide a link say for any video created for the bug to show complex steps to reproduce; it indeed saves time.

V. Additional Information – Add notes here regrading any additional information that a developer needs to  know and follow to find the exact bug, can mention to refer screenshot attached or the links for videos showing steps to reproduce.

Few DO’s

• Always assign severity and priority to the Bug. It is easier to filter out important issues later and always give it a thought before assigning an issue with severity and priority as a minor bug can also have high priority and viceversa.
• Be very clear and precise with your reports, do not end up writing an essay or do not end up with one-liners.

• Always do a grammar/spell check or just read through the bug report before hitting ‘Submit Report’. It adds a lot to the credibility of you as a tester.
• Never miss the Context. If you miss the context, you miss the bug. Include test environments and pre conditions to help the developers get the bug.

Reported Bugs should be a path to catch the bugs easily and effectively resolved by Developers. As they say reporting bugs is no rocket science but it surely requires a lot of common sense!