Severity-VS-Priority

What is severity and priority in software testing?

There are two key things in the defect of the software testing. They are:

1)     Severity
2)     Priority

1)  Severity: It is the extent to which the defect can affect the software. In other words it defines the impact that a given defect has on the system.
Severity means how severe it is affecting the functionality.
The severity type is defined by the tester based on the written test cases and functionality.

2) Priority: Priority defines the order in which we should resolve a defect. Should   we fix it now, or can it wait?
Product manager is to decide the Priority to fix a bug.The priority status is set based on the customer requirements.

The severity is assigned by tester. Based on seriousness of the bug severity is assigned to defect. It can be divided into four categories:

Show Stopper: 4 – Cannot able to test application further.
Major Defect: 3 – Major functionality not working but able to test application.
Minor Defect: 2 –Bug in Functionality but in the sub module or one under the other module.Cosmetic: 1 – Issues in location of the object or the look and feel issue.

High Priority & High Severity: All show stopper bugs would be added under this category,means bug due to which tester is not able to continue with theSoftware Testing, Blocker Bugs.

Example: Upon login to system “Run time error” displayed on the page, so due to which tester is not able to proceed the testing further.

High Priority & Low Severity: On the home page of the company’s web site spelling mistake in the name of the company is surely a High Priority issue. In terms of functionality it is not breaking anything so we can mark as Low Severity, but making bad impact on the reputation of company site. So it highest priority to fix this.

Low Priority & High Severity: System is crashing in the one of the corner scenario, it is impacting major functionality of system so the Severity of the defect is high but as it is corner scenario so many of the user not seeing this page we can mark it as Low Priority

Low Priority & Low Severity: Spelling mistake in the confirmation error message like “You have registered success” instead of successfully, success is written.