Bug Bugger Buggest

If you've ever sat in a bug triage meeting and nodded along while secretly having no clue why one bug is "Low-Low" and another is "High-High," this one's for you.

No jargon overload, no boring textbook definitions — just real examples you'll actually remember.

Here's the golden rule before we dive in:

Severity_ = How badly is the app broken?_

Priority_ = How fast do we need to fix it?_

🟢 Low Severity — Low Priority

What it means: Barely breaks anything. Nobody's losing sleep over it. Fix it whenever, no rush.

🗣️Real-time example: You open Instagram and notice the "Follow" button text is slightly misaligned on your profile page. It still works perfectly — you tap it, it follows the person, life goes on. It's just… a little crooked. Annoying if you're a perfectionist, invisible to literally everyone else.

🎙️Vibe check: It's the equivalent of your Wi-Fi name having a typo. You could fix it. You probably won't today.

🟡 Medium Severity — Medium Priority

What it means: Something's actually not working right, and it affects the experience — but there's usually a workaround, and it's not blocking the app entirely.

🗣️Real-time example: You're on Swiggy/Zomato, and the "Apply Coupon" button doesn't auto-apply the best available offer like it usually does. You have to manually search and enter the coupon code yourself. Mildly annoying, costs you 30 extra seconds, but you can still order food and get your Biryani.

🎙️Vibe check: It's like your favorite show buffering for 10 seconds. Irritating, but you're still watching it tonight.

🔴 High Severity — High Priority

What it means: The app (or a major feature) is straight-up broken, unusable, or actively causing harm — money, data, or trust. Drop everything, fix it now.

🗣️Real-time example: You're checking out on Amazon, your payment gets deducted, but the order shows "Failed" and there's no order confirmation. Your money's gone, there's no proof of purchase, and support isn't answering yet. This isn't a "we'll get to it next sprint" problem — this is a "wake up the on-call engineer at 2 AM" problem.

🎙️Vibe check: This is the app equivalent of your Snapchat streak resetting because the app crashed mid-send. Except with actual money involved. Panic mode: activated.

The Plot Twist Everyone Forgets

Severity and Priority don't always move together.

A High Severity, Low Priority bug totally exists — imagine a crash that only happens on a super old phone model that 0.001% of users still own. It's severe (total crash) but low priority (barely anyone's affected).

Flip side: a Low Severity, High Priority bug — like a typo in a legal disclaimer right before a big product launch or press event. Barely breaks functionality, but reputation is on the line, so it jumps the queue.

That's the real skill in QA and product teams — not just spotting bugs, but knowing which ones to yell about first.

Found this useful? Bookmark it, share it with your dev group chat, and tag a teammate who still thinks every bug is "urgent." 🐛