Bug, Error or Crash: How Should the Problem Be Correctly Named?

Software testing company is almost unlimited in selecting the definition to define the system errors. The choice of the term absolutely depends on the errors peculiarities themselves and their appearance area and consequences.

The system malfunctions may be of various priority and severity which determine the level of their consequences. There are the mistakes which may worth the person’s life, for example, the bug in the functional of the spacecraft or the passenger liner.

A tester selects a certain term, following exactly the bug’s characteristics. There is no any universal specification of the system error. This situation can be also solved by neither the corporate culture nor the specifics of the product itself, nor the development process peculiarities. 

How May the System Error Be Called?

  • Defect
  • Problem
  • Crash
  • Bug
  • Incident
  • Dispersion
  • Mismatch, and so on

The listed definitions are mainly used by the specialists who execute software product testing. The developers may utilize completely different terms. In order to figure out this issue, one should pay attention to the vocabulary definition of these concepts.

The “incident” and “defect” words refer rather to something serious and maybe even dangerous. Thus, if, performing user interface testing, a specialist detected the icon of the improper color and called this error a “bug”, then this definition will be absolutely incorrect.

The “mismatch” or “defect” terms do not mean something serious or critical. These are thedefinitions rather of the unexpected, unspecified events.

Frequently, conducting mobile testing, desktop testing or web application testing, the specialists use the “bug” term.

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