Priority and Severity are attributes of a defect in software testing and should be provided in the bug report.
This information makes it easier for the developer to decide on which bug to fix earlier.
Priority is determined by the impact of the bug on the business. For example, if on the Google home page an ‘o’ is missing from the word ‘Google’, it does not impact any functionality but can impact the name and business and therefore this bug will be of higher priority.
Severity is determined by the functional impact of the bug or impact on the application. For example, if a very commonly used button on the home page of a website does not work, it is a bug of critical severity. Whereas if there is some spelling mistake in a disclaimer text which is present on the last page and is rarely seen by the user, then it will be of trivial severity.
Types of Priority
- High
- Medium
- Low
Types of Severity
- Critical
- Major
- Minor
- Trivial
Point to consider
- A developer picks up high priority bugs first for fixing
- In general, the severity is determined by the testing team, usually, the lead and priority is determined by the dev team/lead
