How to Write a Bug Report? Bug Scoring, Format, Template

The role of bug scoring is to prioritize the bugs on a scale from one to five.

• 5- Lowest

• 4- Low

• 3- Medium

• 2- High

• 1- Highest

The score of a bug shows the level of criticality of the bug to be fixed. For instance, if a bug can cause major security issues and there are several low-priority bugs as well, then the testing teams will focus on fixing the high-priority bugs first.

The scoring can be done on the basis of a number of factors, such as which bug fix will improve the customer experience, which one will bring the high enhancements, which ones can cause cyberattacks, etc.

Before creating a bug report, you should know that there can be different types of reports, like coding error report, design error report, suggestion report, hardware issues report, documentation issues report, etc. You can also include these factors in a single report. 

Let’s go through a simple bug report format to create a good and effective report of the bugs in software, app, or system. It should have the following sections:

• Reporter: The name of the person reporting the bugs

• Product: The product in which the bugs exist

• Version: The software or product version

• Components: The primary components or sub-modules of the product

• Platform: The platforms where the bugs have been found, such as a computer, MacBook, HP, etc.

• Operating System: The OS where the bug exists, such as Android, Windows, Linux, macOS, etc.

• Priority: Give the bug a priority score on a scale of 1 to 5. 1 means the bug needs to be fixed with the highest priority, and 5 means fix the bug when the time allows. 

• Severity: It is to show the impact of the bug. Here are some types of severity that can be defined in a report:

• blocker: testing can’t be done further

• critical: crashing the app, causing data loss

• major: major loss of functions

• minor: minor loss of functions

• trivial: improvements to user interface

• enhancement: the need for the addition of new features or making improvements to existing ones

• Status: For a new report, the status will be New by default. As the testers put effort, the status can be changed to Fixed, Won’t Fix, Verified, etc. 

• Assigned To: In case you know who is responsible for fixing a specific bug, then you can assign the report to that person or team with an email address. If you are not sure about it, then let it remain blank. 

• URL: Mention the URL where the bug is found, like a web page.

• Summary: Write a quick summary of the bug within 50 to 70 words. 

Description: Write a detailed description of the bug to show what the issue is, where it is, what’s causing it, consequences, etc.

All About Bug Reporting