Defect Severity & Priority

Defect Severity

Severity indicates the degree of impact a defect has on the functionality of the application, from a technical/functional perspective.

• Critical: Causes the application to crash or completely blocks a major function.
• Major/High: A significant feature doesn't work as expected, but the system doesn't crash.
• Minor/Medium: A smaller issue that doesn't significantly affect the application's core functionality.
• Low/Trivial: Cosmetic issues, such as minor UI misalignment or typos.

Defect Priority

Priority indicates the order in which a defect should be fixed, from a business/urgency perspective.

• High: Must be fixed immediately, often before the next release.
• Medium: Should be fixed in the current release cycle if possible.
• Low: Can be fixed later, in a future release.

Severity vs Priority

Severity and priority are independent: a defect can be high severity but low priority (e.g., a crash in a rarely used feature) or low severity but high priority (e.g., a visible typo on the homepage that must be fixed before a big launch).