Sample Test Cases for Account Deactivation

In this article, we discuss test cases for account deactivation. These days many webapps are offering the account removal feature for every user. Some webapps also offer personal data removal from the system. Some apps don’t offer the account deactivation for the user. In such case only the administrator can delete the user account and data. In this article, we are going to discuss some of the test cases for webapps that offer account deactivation feature.

There are few things to consider before we let users to deactivate their user account. Here are some questions that your quality assurance team should pay attention to.

1. Why are users interested in removing their profile?
2. Do users want to remove their personal data?
3. Does system allows them to remove their personal profile and data?
4. What information we are collecting from the users who are removing their profile?
5. Do we give them a choice to reactivate their profile?
6. Do the system retains data of user if they reactivate?

Once you answer these questions, you get the idea why the users want to remove their personal data and deactivate account. Based on that information we get the idea to effectively implement the account deactivation feature. Each webapp these days offer the system to removal of data. Also such feature has simple remove account feature. However you may find that social network like facebook don’t easily remove your data. So in such case you should focus more on the features that allow users to retain privacy while removing their account.

Take a look at Facebook deactivation dialog box.

Here are some of the test cases for the account deactivation.

1. Does the system offer any form of email confirmations?
2. Does the user loses data after removal of the account?
3. Does the user gets back the data after reactivation?
4. Is the feature irreversible or permanent?
5. Does the account deactivation same as uninstalling or removing the app? (In case of android app)
6. Do other people get to access the profile after removal? (In case of social network)
7. Does the deactivation purges past data?
8. 8. Is it possible to deactivate someone’s account by security leak?
9. Does the administrator or moderator has privillege to deactivate others account?
10. Does the deactivation feature requires two step authentication?
11. Does the deactivation feature requires password verification for action?
12. Does the deactivation feature asks for user intent behind action? (As in user is accidentally doing it or purposefully)
13. Is it possible to deactivate accidentally?
14. Is it possible to recover account if deleted accidentally?
15. Does the system offers confirmation after deactivation?
16. Does the system offers some confirmation before activation?
17. Does the system allows registering the user account with same name and email?
18. Does it require calling customer support to reactivate?
19. Does the system offers information about what happens after deactivation?
20. Does the support has FAQ on account deactivation?
21. Does the support handles account deactivation issues?
22. Does the data retention possible if security leak leads to account hacking?
23. Does the user get to permanently remove the personal information?
24. Does the account deactivation process checks for security leaks?
25. Does the account deactivation removes the username from the system?

These are some of the test cases for account deactivation for profile system. Some webapps have different type of feature sets that gets deactivated. For example deactivation on facebook only means that users activity is restricted and others can’t access the profile. In such case facebook has different user account deletion which removes data from the account. So for some webapp account deletion and deactivation are not exactly the same features. I hope you find these test cases useful. If you have any other test cases and suggestions in mind then feel free to suggest in the comments. I’d appreciate if you share the post on social media. 🙂