Okay, here is my sharing about how to report a bug on iOS:
Last week, I got a new task. The boss asked me to do some tests on our company’s new app which runs on iOS. He wanted me to find some bugs and collect all of the information. To be honest, I didn’t know how to write a good bug report at that time. So, I searched on Google and found something useful. Here is my experience:
First, try to find out how to reappear this bug.
This is important! You have to know how to make this bug show up again. I tried many times to find out what steps could make this bug happen again. I opened the app and did some operations like clicking some buttons or jumping between different pages. I wrote down every operation I did on paper.
After several attempts, I finally got it. I could reliably reproduce the bug. Great! It meant I could give the engineers a clear way to see the bug themselves.
Second, record all the details of this bug.
I knew that just saying “hey, there’s a bug” wasn’t enough. Developers need detailed information to fix it. So, I started to collect all the information about this bug.
- Environment: I noted down the iOS version and the device model I used.
- Steps: I wrote down the exact steps to reproduce the bug. It’s like a recipe.
- Expected result: I wrote down what I thought should happen.
- Actual result: I wrote down what actually happened when the bug appeared.
- Screenshot or video: If possible, I captured a screenshot or recorded a short video to show the bug. I tried some apps for recording screen, but some of them were not free. Finally, I used the screen recording feature that comes with iOS.
Third, organize all the information to a formal report.
I used a simple document to organize everything. I gave it a clear title like “Crash when clicking the ‘Save’ button on the Profile page”. Then I added the sections that I mentioned before: Environment, Steps, Expected result, Actual result, and the screenshot or video.
That’s my experience of how I learned to report bugs on iOS. Not too difficult, right? The most important thing is to be patient and try to find out the details as much as possible. It takes some time, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty straightforward. Hope this helps someone who faces the same problem.