Examples of Severity and priority of all

combination
Could please anybody give me the good examples of:
High severity and Low priority
Low severity and High priority
Low severity and Low priority
High severity and High priority
Med severity and Med priority
…. in the terms of functionality.. and Please tell me who will give the priority.

In web application, if the Logo or the company name is not displayed fine, then its high severity and low
priority issue. If in the application home page, if a link is not working then its a high priority but a low
severity defect.

Priority is how soon the issue needs to be resolved. Severity defines the impact of the issue. Going by
the question, it’s a high priority issue as it impact the branding of the image rather than affecting any
functionality in the websites.
Priority should be set after discussion with the business (which is usually done by the functional tester)
Severity is set after discussing with the dev team

Suppose a Logo text is not proper that will be affect to company Work than that is a called High Severity
and Low Priority.

High severity low priority: Logo of the company.

High severity high priority: Submit button of login page not working or page not displaying.
Low severity high priority: e.g.: if in a bike yourself start is not working but kick start is … its a high
priority that u kick start also can stop but severity is low because for now you have an option to work
with.
Low severity low priority: spelling mistakes in text of home screen.

Logo: Company logo is part of branding so anything related to branding becomes high priority – meaning
very important. But that does not break the system! The developer needs to replace the incorrect logo
file with the correct one.

Link: The priority depends on how important the link is for the user. If a user has to click the link to
agree on the terms and conditions then both priority and severity are high. If the terms and conditions
are not accepted then user should be prohibited from proceeding any further. If the link itself is not
functional then the tester cannot proceed any further or do anything else. Therefore, I would suggest
one to specific when providing such examples in interview.

Look like some of the combinations do not have examples..

Medium priority low severity bug:
Let suppose, the application under test (AUT) is a social security (yes this little detail will remove any
trace of vagueness) registration portal and the [Print] button is not functional (not working) on the page
that gives the SSN (let’s assume SSN is instant). This bug will have medium priority and medium severity.
Printing functionality is important because the user cannot remember the SSN and so a paper copy is
essential. But this does not break further functionality or affect the DB, therefore severity is low.

Medium priority and medium severity bug

continuing with the SSN website example, let us suppose telephone # field doe not allow user to update
the #. The govt. can contact the SSN holder by mailing the communication to their address and this bug
arises only when user needs to update the telephone #. So priority is medium. Let suppose a developer
has investigated the issue and found the bug in database (DB) then the severity is medium.

Medium priority and high severity bug

Continuing with SSN website..Let’s say the SSN holder profile page crashes ONLY when a user attempts
to update telephone # field. In this case, priority is medium and severity is high.

High Severity Low Priority – Page after you click the login button crashes or page not found error. Its
high severe, but low priority coz priority one would be login page working fine.
Low Severity High Priority – Cosmetic error or spelling mistake on login page. Its a small bug but has
high priority as its in the main login page.

High Severity and High Priority- If the Login page does not open, it is high severity and high priority

Low Severity and High Priority- If the logo in the Login page is not displayed, it is not impacting the
functionality but it is still a deviation from the requirements, so it is priority to fix the issue.

High Priority & High Severity: An error which occurs on the basic functionality of the application and will
not allow the user to use the system. (E.g. A site maintaining the student details, on saving record if it,
does not allow to save the record then this is high priority and high severity bug.)

High Priority & Low Severity: The spelling and grammar mistakes that happens on the cover page or
heading or title of an application.

High Severity & Low Priority: An error which occurs on the functionality of the application and will not
allow the user to use the system but on click of link which is rarely used by the end user.

Low Priority and Low Severity: Any spelling and grammar issues or minor UI issues which is within a
paragraph or in the report (Not on cover page, heading, title).

Priority:- Urgency of defect fixing

Severity:- Impact of defect
Types are:- High:- System crash, System not working, automatically closed then priority is high
Medium:- if URL issue, file name mismatched then priority medium
Low:- Color, Font, Spelling, grammar mistake then priority is low
LS & HP: When the user open the any online shopping application & after select the particular item and
then move to the payment details after filling all the details when the user click the pay button it, is not
able to navigate. i.e., the pay button will be disable mode…(it is not impacting the functionality of the
 application it is low severity, it is blocker bug then it should be fixed immediately were the user cannot
continue, it is high priority.)
1. Severity means how much critical the bug is for the functionality of application.
2. Priority means the ORDER in which bug should be fix.
Examples:
1. High Priority & High Severity – For an email service provider compose box is not open , mail
is not going to recipient or Bcc .
2. High Priority & Low severity – For an email service provider spelling mistake in its Logo like
hotmail is hatmail ,gmail is qmail
3.Low priority & High Severity – For an email service provider if u sign up and click Terms and
Condition page and it is not displaying . No body want to read the 8 pages T&C of gmail its severity is
high because functionality is not working but not any business impact on Gmail
4. Low Priority and low severity : Spelling mistakes like if today you open login page of Facebook
and select language Punjabi fields are showing in English language “Re enter your password “
High severity Low Priority:
In data search query while entering special char application gives server error.

Low Severity Low Priority:

UI related minor issues

High Severity High Priority:

While clicking on login button system gets crashed

Low Severity High Priority:

Company logo is wrong or spelling mistake in company name

Basically Severity is decided keeping application point of view

Priority is decided keeping user point of view

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Defect Severity and Defect Priority with examples
Difference between Severity and Priority of a defect has been the most common question for Software
Testing job interviews. This is one topic; even very senior managers have conflicting views sometimes.

Defect Severity

Defect Severity signifies degree of impact the defect has on the development or operation of a
component application being tested. It is the extent to which the defect can affect the software. The
severity type is defined by the Software Tester based on the written test cases and functionality.

Defect Severity may range from Low to Critical

 Critical – this defect is causing system failure. Nothing can proceed further. It may also be called as a
show stopper
 Major – highly severe defect, is causing the system to collapse, however few parts of the system are
still usable, and/or there are a few workarounds for using the system in the collapsed state too
 Medium – is causing some undesirable behavior, however system / feature is still usable to a high
degree
 Low – is more of a cosmetic issue. No serious impedance to system functionality is noted

Defect Priority

Defect priority signifies the level of urgency of fixing the bug. In other words Priority means how fast/
how soon it has to be fixed. Though priority may be initially set by the Software Tester, it is usually
finalized by the Project/Product Manager.

Defect Priority may range from Low to Urgent

 Urgent: Must to be fixed before any other high, medium or low defect should be fixed. Must be fixed
in the next build.
 High: Must be fixed in any of the upcoming builds but should be included in the release.
 Medium: should take precedence over low priority defects and may be fixed after the release / in
the next release.
 Low: Fixing can be deferred until all other priority defects are fixed. It may or may not be fixed at all.

Differences between Defect Severity and Defect Priority

Severity Priority

Severity is associated with

Priority is associated with scheduling.
standards/functionality.

Severity refers to the seriousness of the bug

on the functionality of the product. Higher Priority refers to how soon the bug should
effect on the functionality will lead to be fixed.
assignment of higher severity to the bug.

Generally, the Quality Assurance Engineer Priority to fix a bug is decided in

decides the severity level. consultation with the client/manager.

Examples;-

1. Let us assume a scenario where “Login” button is labeled as “Logen”:

The priority and severity for different situations may be expressed as:-

 For GUI testing: it is high priority and low severity

 For UI testing: it is high priority and high severity
 For functional testing: it is low priority and low severity
 For cosmetic testing: it is low priority and high severity

1. Low Severity, Low Priority

Suppose an application (web) is made up of 20 pages. On one of the pages out of the 20 which is visited
very infrequently, there is a sentence with a grammatical error. Now, even though it’s a mistake on this
expensive website, users can understand its meaning without any difficulty. This bug may go unnoticed
to the eyes of many and won’t affect any functionality or the credibility of the company.

1. Low Severity, High Priority

While developing a site for Pepsi, by mistake a logo sign of coke is embedded. This does not affect
functionality in any way but has high priority to be fixed.

Any typo mistakes or glaring spelling mistakes on home page.

High Severity, Low Priority

Incase application works perfectly for 50000 sessions but beings to crash after higher number
of sessions. This problem needs to be fixed but not immediately.

Any report generation not getting completed 100% – Means missing Title, Title Columns but
having proper data enlisted. We could have this fixed in the next build but missing report
columns is a High Severity defect.

1. High Severity, High Priority

Now assume a windows-based application, a word-processor let’s say. As you open any file to be viewed
it in, it crashes. Now, you can only create new files but as you open them, the word-processor crashes.
This completely eliminates the usability of that word-processor as you can’t come back and edit your
work on it, and also affects one of the major functionalities of the application. Thus, it’s a severe bug
and should be fixed immediately.

Let’s say, as soon as the user clicks login button on Gmail site, some junk data is displayed on a blank
page. Users can access the gmail.com website, but are not able to login successfully and no relevant
error message is displayed. This is a severe bug and needs topmost priority.

———————————————————————————————————————————

Give some examples of

Low Severity and Low Priority Bugs
High Severity and Low Priority Bugs
Low Severity and High Priority Bugs
High Severity and High Priority Bugs ?
Answer1:
First know about severity and priority then it’s easy to decide Low or Medium or High
Priority-Business oriented
Severity-Effect of bug in the functionality

1. For example there is cosmetic change in the clients name and you found this bug at the time of
delivery, so the severity of this bug is low but the priority is high because it affects to the business.
2. If you found that there is major crash in the functionality of the application but the crash lies in the
module which is not delivered in the deliverables in this case the priority is low and severity is high.

Answer2:
Priority – how soon your business side needs a fix. (Tip: The engineering side never decides priority.)
Severity – how bad the bug bites. (Tip: Only engineers decide severity.)
For a high priority, low severity example, suppose your program has an Easter egg (a secret feature)
showing a compromising photo of your boss. Schedule this bug to be removed immediately.

Low priority, high severity example: A long chain of events leads to a crash that risks the main data file.
Because the chain of events is longer than customers might probably reproduce, so keep an eye on this
one while fixing higher priority things.
Testers should report bugs, the business side should understand them and set their priorities. Then
testers and engineers should capture the bugs with automated tests before killing them. This reduces
the odds they come back, and generally reduces “churn”, which is bug fixes causing new bugs.

Answer3:
Priority is how important it is to the customer and if the customer is going to find it. Severity is how bad
it is, if the customer found it.

High Priority low severity

I have a text editor and every 3 minutes it rings a bell (it is also noted that the editor does an auto-save
every 3 minutes). This is going to drive the customer insane. They want it fixed ASAP; i.e. high priority.
The impact is minimal. They can turn off the audio when using the editor. There are workarounds.
Should be easy for the developer to find the code and fix it.

Low Priority High severity

If I press CRTL-Q-SHIFT-T, only in that order, then eject a floppy diskette from the drive it formats my
hard drive. It is a low priority because it is unlikely a customer is going to be affected by it. It is high
severity because if a customer did find it the results would be horrific.

High Priority High severity

If I open the Save As dialog and same the file with the same name as the Save dialog would have used it
saves a zero byte file and all the data is lost. Many customers will select Save As then decide to
overwrite the original document instead. They will NOT cancel the Save As and select Save instead, they
will just use Save As and pick the same file name as the one they opened. So the likelihood of this
happening is high; therefore high priority. It will cause the customer to lose data. This is costly.
Therefore high severity.
 Low Priority low severity
if I hold the key combination LEFT_CTRL+LEFT_ALT+RIGHT_ALT+RIGHT_CTRL+F1+F12 for 3 minutes it
will display cryptic debug information used by the programmer during development. It is highly unlikely
a customer will find this so it is low priority. Even if they do find it might result in a call to customer
service asking what this information means. Telling the customer it is debug code left behind; they
didn’t want to remove it because it would have added risk and delayed the release of the program is
safer than removing it and potentially breaking something else.

Answer4:
High Priority low severity
Spelling the name of the company president wrong

Low Priority High severity

Year end processing breaks (’cause its 6 more months ’till year end)

High Priority High severity

Application won’t start

Low Priority low severity

spelling error in documentation; occasionally screen is slightly
miss drawn requiring a screen refresh

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Example High Priority High Severity Bug

As I have near about 5+ years experience in software testing i realized that setting correct priority and
severity is necessary to overcome on bug. That’s the reason many times people face this question”
Please give the example of High priority and High severity Bug” . Reason behind it to find out person is
able to set severity and priority. There are 4 combinations of Severity and priority.

1. High Priority and High Severity

2. High Priority and Low Severity
3. Low Priority and Low Severity
4. Low Priority and High Severity

Example for High Priority and High Severity:-

Suppose there is ATM Machine hope everyone is aware of ATM ma machine which is used for banking
transactions. If ATM machine has bug like when user withdraw money from same bank ATM for which
he is holding bank account, He is getting charged by 20 rs per transaction. Which is invalid as bank policy
says withdrawing money from owns bank ATM no charge will be applied.
So this bug is high priority because Bank is charging 20 rs per transaction for own ATM which is opposite
to business logic.

And bug is high severity this bug needs to resolve immediately because thousands of users withdraw
money per hour so it cost high.
Example for High Priority and Low Severity Bug

Example 1)

Next example is about High Priority and Low Severity Bug. Here we take example of yahoo.com.
Everyone remind the logo or yahoo.com. Suppose while updating yahoo.com by mistake they updated
the wrong logo with spell missing like yaho.com here ‘o‘ is missing . It should be Yahoo.com. Now
here bug is High Priority and Low Severity Bug Because

This bug is High Priority– Yahoo.com is company logo and mistake in company logo need to resolve on
high priority to keep brand.

This bug is Low Severity– As its just spelling mistake then impact on user is not much high.

Example 2)

Suppose there is ATM machine. Every one use ATM machine for daily transactions.
When you visit ATM machine sometime you may see advertisements from bank on festival season.
Suppose on 2nd Oct on occasions of Gandhi jayanti (Last date to do saving is 3rd oct) bank is giving 0.5%
extra (basic 5 % + additional 0.5%= 5.5%) additional interest for senior citizens on savings. This
advertisement need to flash on or before 3rd oct. Suppose you visited ATM on 4th Oct morning and still
you are seeing this add and date displaying in advertisement is 3rd oct last date to do savings.

Here priority is high as advertisement is flashing on multiple ATMs after end of date to do savings. And
Impact is not much as date displaying in advertisement 3rd oct
means scheme is already over so severity is low . So need to stop this advertisement on priority.

Example for Low Priority and Low Severity Bug

Now about the next example for Low Priority and Low Severity Bug. Here we can talk about well know
and well used website portal. Yahoo.com. Everyone knows logo of Yahoo.com. Suppose while updating
the website they made a spell mistake in a content. Its fine it wont impact much. User can still use the
website. Its not mean that no need to fix this bug. Bug need to be fix but on Low Priority and Low
Severity Bug.

This bug is in Low Priority because – It’s fine it won’t impact much. User can still use the website and
can be fix after some time.

This bug is in Low Severity because – It’s fine it won’t impact much. User can still use the website

Example of low priority and high severity bug

This is the best example for low priority and high severity bug. Last’s think there is banking application
who gives interest of rs 2 for every 1000 rs in account on the last day of year. Means on last day of year
31.12.YYYY the bank will deposit 2 rs interest for every 1000rs in account. Now bank found a bug that
 instead of 2 rs application giving interest of 4 rs for every 1000 rs in account. Means due to bug interest
is going double.

This bug is high severity – Due to bug interest is going double and bank may have thousands of accounts,
so it will not be profitable for bank.

This bug is Low priority – Depositing interest is happen on last day of year so if its beginning of year like
January then there is lot of time to solve this bug .

 High Priority & High Severity:

All show stopper bugs would be added under this category (I mean to say tester should log Severity as
High, to set up Priority as High is Project manager’s call), means bug due to which tester is not able to
continue with the Software Testing, Blocker Bugs.

Let’s take an example of High Priority & High Severity, 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:

The download Quarterly statement is not generating correctly from the website & user is already
entered in quarter in last month. So we can say such bugs as High Severity, this is bugs occurring while
generating quarterly report. We have time to fix the bug as report is generated at the end of the quarter
so priority to fix the bug is Low.

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 by project manager since many other important bugs are likely to fix before doing
high priority bugs because high priority bugs are can be visible to client or end user first.

 Low Priority & Low Severity:

1. Spelling mistake in the confirmation error message like “You have registered success” instead of
successfully, success is written.
2. Developer is missed remove cryptic debug information shortcut key which is used developer
while developing he application, if you pressing the key combination
LEFT_ALT+LEFT_CTRL+RIGHT_CTRL+RIGHT_ALT+F5+F10 for 1 minitus (funny na).

It is where rare scenario where user can hold the key for such long period of time so bug should
be marked as low priority.

———————————————————————————————————————————

 Low Priority and Low Severity

When use register to website and after registration successful message having spelling mistake then this
bug comes under low priority and low severity.

Here priority is low because user able to register properly , Because of that spelling mistake it does not
creating any issue in register process. Severity is also low because that spelling mistake does not
affecting any other part of website. So this bug impact is very small.

 High Priority and High Severity

When user try to register to your website they are getting run time error and not able to register. Here
priority is high because your website register function is not working and users getting error.

So it is really require fixing soon. Severity is also high because registration is very important
functionality for any website, this type of run time error to end user can put negative impact about your
site in user’s mind.

 Low Priority and High Severity

Here bug can be fixed later as priority is low but bug impact is high. Suppose you are managing e-
commerce website to sell products. Now customers who are using old browser versions are not able to
checkout and pay from your site to buy product. So here Priority is low because your website running
properly with all latest browsers and customers who will have old browser will be very few but Severity
is high because customer who are not able to use your website properly in old browser version will have
negative impact of your website in mind.

 High Priority and Low Severity

Here bug need to be solve very urgent even if it has not much impact area to the system. Spelling
mistake in your brand logo is best example for this category. Your brand name is always unique and
must be correct on website. Here Priority is high because your brand name itself is wrong in logo of
your website which looks odd and Severity is low because it is not affecting any other function of your
system. User can still navigate, login, register to your website easily.

10 thoughts on “Severity and Priority Examples”

Questions:- In this article I found multiple views on “Logo of the brand”.
Is it “High Severity and Low Priority” (or) “Low Severity and High Priority” ?

Answers:-

1) Spelling mistake in your brand logo —>High Priority and Low Severity it doesnot affect functionality of
application
2) Company logo is wrong —> High Priority and Low Severity it doesnot affect functionality of application
3) Logo text is not Proper —> High Priority and Low Severity it doesnot affect functionality of application
4)Missing company logo—> High Severity and High Prority

Ajay Kulkarni

example for high priority and medium severity?

Medium priority low severity bug:

Let suppose, the application under test (AUT) is a social security (yes this little detail will remove any
trace of vagueness) registration portal and the [Print] button is not functional (not working) on the page
that gives the SSN (lets assume SSN is instant). This bug will have medium priority and medium severity.
Printing functionality is important because the user cannot remember the SSN and so a paper copy is
essential. But this does not break further functionality or affect the DB, therefore severity is low.

Medium priority and medium severity bug

continuing with the SSN website example, let us suppose telephone # field doe not allow user to update
the #. The govt. can contact the SSN holder by mailing the communication to their address and this bug
arises only when user needs to update the telephone #. So priority is medium. Let suppose a developer
has investigated the issue and found the bug in database (DB) then the severity is medium.

Medium priority and high severity bug

Continuing with SSN website..Lets say the SSN holder profile page crashes ONLY when a user attempts
to update telephone # field. In this case, priority is medium and severity is high.