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8.4Validation Activities
Validation checks whether the product meets actual user needs. It goes beyond the specification to ask "does this solve the user's problem?"
Common Validation Activities
| Activity | What It Reveals |
|---|---|
| User Acceptance Testing (UAT) | Does the feature meet business requirements from the user's perspective? |
| Beta testing | How do real users interact with the feature in the wild? |
| Usability testing | Can users accomplish their goals efficiently and without confusion? |
| A/B testing | Which implementation better achieves the business objective? |
| Customer feedback | Post-release validation of whether the feature solves real problems |
| Analytics review | Are users actually using the feature? Where do they drop off? |
Validation in Practice
A QA engineer involved in validation asks different questions than one focused on verification:
Verification question: "Does the checkout flow handle international addresses correctly?"
Validation question: "Is the checkout flow simple enough that users complete purchases without abandoning?"
Verification question: "Does the search return results matching the query?"
Validation question: "Does the search return results that users actually find useful?"