Severity: How badly a bug affects the system or its users.
Example
The app crashing during payment is high severity; a spelling mistake in the footer is low severity.
Why Severity matters for IT interns
Severity helps the team understand impact. Report it honestly, not dramatically.
Where you will hear it
You will hear this term in testing and quality discussions, from test planning to bug reports. If someone uses it and you are not sure what they mean in your project, it is completely fine to ask; every team uses terms a little differently.
Related terms
- Priority (in bug tracking): How soon a bug should be fixed, based on business needs.
- QA (Quality Assurance): The work of making sure software meets the expected quality, through testing, reviews and improving how the…
- Regression Testing: Re-testing existing features after a change to make sure nothing that used to work is now broken.
- Smoke Testing: A quick set of basic checks on a new build to confirm the most important functions work before deeper testing…
- Software Testing: Checking whether software works as expected by using it and comparing the actual results with the expected…
- Test Case: A specific, written check: the steps to follow, the input to use and the result you expect.
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Related guides
Frequently asked questions
What is Severity?
How badly a bug affects the system or its users.
What is an example of Severity?
The app crashing during payment is high severity; a spelling mistake in the footer is low severity.
Why does Severity matter for IT interns?
Severity helps the team understand impact. Report it honestly, not dramatically.
Explore more internship terms
The IT Internship Glossary explains 199 terms you will hear before and during your internship, with simple definitions and real examples.
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About the author
Dhaivat has 16+ years of experience in the IT industry, working on AI and cloud technologies, project delivery, and engineering leadership. He has interviewed and mentored many interns, wrote The Lost Intern, and runs the non-commercial Career Impact Initiative, mentoring students for free.