There are various ways in which we can classify. Below are some of the classifications:
Severity Wise:
- Major: A defect, which will cause an observable product failure or departure from requirements.
- Minor: A defect that will not cause a failure in execution of the product.
- Fatal: A defect that will cause the system to crash or close abruptly or effect other applications.
Work product wise:
- SSD: A defect from System Study document
- FSD: A defect from Functional Specification document
- ADS: A defect from Architectural Design Document
- DDS: A defect from Detailed Design document
- Source code: A defect from Source code
- Test Plan/ Test Cases: A defect from Test Plan/ Test Cases
- User Documentation: A defect from User manuals, Operating manuals
Type of Errors Wise:
- Comments: Inadequate/ incorrect/ misleading or missing comments in the source code
- Computational Error: Improper computation of the formulae / improper business validations in code.
- Data error: Incorrect data population / update in database
- Database Error: Error in the database schema/Design
- Missing Design: Design features/approach missed/not documented in the design document and hence does not correspond to requirements
- Inadequate or sub optimal Design: Design features/approach needs additional inputs for it to be completeDesign features described does not provide the best approach (optimal approach) towards the solution required
- In correct Design: Wrong or inaccurate Design
- Ambiguous Design: Design feature/approach is not clear to the reviewer. Also includes ambiguous use of words or unclear design features.
- Boundary Conditions Neglected: Boundary conditions not addressed/incorrect
- Interface Error: Internal or external to application interfacing error, Incorrect handling of passing parameters, Incorrect alignment, incorrect/misplaced fields/objects, un friendly window/screen positions
- Logic Error: Missing or Inadequate or irrelevant or ambiguous functionality in source code
- Message Error: Inadequate/ incorrect/ misleading or missing error messages in source code
- Navigation Error: Navigation not coded correctly in source code
- Performance Error: An error related to performance/optimality of the code
- Missing Requirements: Implicit/Explicit requirements are missed/not documented during requirement phase
- Inadequate Requirements: Requirement needs additional inputs for to be complete
- Incorrect Requirements: Wrong or inaccurate requirements
- Ambiguous Requirements: Requirement is not clear to the reviewer. Also includes ambiguous use of words – e.g. Like, such as, may be, could be, might etc.
- Sequencing / Timing Error: Error due to incorrect/missing consideration to timeouts and improper/missing sequencing in source code.
- Standards: Standards not followed like improper exception handling, use of E & D Formats and project related design/requirements/coding standards
- System Error: Hardware and Operating System related error, Memory leak
- Test Plan / Cases Error: Inadequate/ incorrect/ ambiguous or duplicate or missing – Test Plan/ Test Cases & Test Scripts, Incorrect/Incomplete test setup
- Typographical Error: Spelling / Grammar mistake in documents/source code
- Variable Declaration Error: Improper declaration / usage of variables, Type mismatch error in source code
Status Wise:
- Open
- Closed
- Deferred
- Cancelled
These are the major ways in which defects can be classified. I’ll write more regarding the probable causes of these defects in one of my next posts… 🙂
Also See:
