Have you ever got a “It doesn’t work” bug report? Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. I’ve been there, too 🙂 We agree that’s not the right way to report a bug, but what a good bug report looks like? Well, it must have the following information or at least most of them:
Bug Report Content
Title
A short explanation of the bug.
Don’t: “Registration form doesn’t work”
Do: “Registration form doesn’t display a message when username is not allowed”
Description
You don’t have to write an essay. Keep the description a bit short and to the point.
Don’t: “Registration form doesn’t work”
Do: “I navigated to the registration page, filled in all fields, clicked on the Register button, but nothing happened.”
How to reproduce
Describe the steps you’ve taken to get to the issue. The developer must be able to reproduce it, if they follow these steps.
Example:
1. Navigate to the registration page
2. Type root in username
3. Type 1234 in password
4. Click on the Register button
Expected result
What should happen when you complete the process? e.g. I should have been redirected to the thank you page
Actual result
What really happened? e.g. The registration page is displayed again
Suggest a fix
If you think you know how the bug can be fixed, write that on the report and save the developer some time.
Product
Provide the product name and its exact version, if you know it. If you tried different versions, provide that information, too.
Severity
How urgent the bug is. e.g. Trivial, Minor, Major, Critical, Blocker
Environment
You should write what software were you using when you hit the bug. Depending on the kind of the application, the following information could be part of the report:
- Operating system name and version
- Browser name and version
- Language version (maybe with a list of installed extensions)
- Device
- Network connectivity (e.g. 3G, Wi-Fi)
Screenshots / Video
A picture is worth a thousand words. Many times, especially for UI bugs, a picture, or even better a video, can be very helpful. Try to attach one whenever you believe it could help the developer to fix the issue in less time.
I hope you found the tips above useful and use them the next time you’ll report a bug 🙂 Please leave a comment if you think you could add something to make bug reports more useful.