Bug Severity refers to the impact of a defect on the functionality or the end-user experience. It measures how severe the issue is and how critical it is to fix it. The severity of a defect can be classified into levels such as high, medium, or low. Bug severity measures the impact a defect (or bug) can have on the development or functioning of an application feature when it is being used. It depends on the effect of the bug on the system. Depending on how much of a threat the bug can pose to the software, bug severity can be divided into multiple levels: - **Low:** Bug won’t result in any noticeable breakdown of the system - **Minor:** Results in some unexpected or undesired behavior, but not enough to disrupt system function - **Major:** Bug capable of collapsing large parts of the system - **Critical:** Bug capable of triggering complete system shutdown Usually, QA engineers are the ones to determine the level of bug severity. ### **How to determine Bug Severity?** 1. Identify how frequently the bug can occur. Even if the bug is minor, it can be problematic if it frequently occurs in the code. In this case, the minor defect can majorly disrupt the end-user experience. 2. Once the defect has been isolated and identified, it can be examined to evaluate its severity.