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The booming software development market lifts every challenge that comes along the way. Developing software is never a singular event - it’s always a continuous process taking all the efforts of software developers to touch the standardized line of requirements.
Quality Assurance(QA) is one of those software development processes, helping the overall software system to reach user satisfaction with defined quality standards. To begin with the quality assurance process, there are tons of QA methods that a developer team utilizes as per their software project’s unique needs.
In this blog, we will go through the quality assurance process, QA methods, and best practices of QA to deliver user-ready software.
Let’s begin!
What is Quality Assurance?
Quality assurance may sound like a reserved term for software developers, but it’s a crucial concept for any industry that strives for excellence.
QA is the systematic approach of ensuring that products or services consistently meet predefined standards and customer expectations.
The quality assurance process prevents defects and ensures quality by defining standards, implementing workflows and other procedures, testing, inspecting, reporting, and analyzing. The quality assurance system promises increased customer confidence and a company’s credibility.
The driving force behind QA practices is the ISO(International Organization for Standardization) to map the implemented quality assurance process. Companies often pair QA with ISO 9000 standards to ensure their quality assurance system is in place and is effective.
Quality Assurance(QA) vs Quality Testing(QT)
In the relentless pursuit of excellence, two terms are often thrown around interchangeably: Quality Assurance(QA) and Quality Testing(QT). While both are crucial for delivering exceptional products and services, they are distinct concepts with unique roles.
Let’s understand both the terms deeply:
Quality assurance establishes the blueprint for quality, encompassing all stages of the development process, from conception to delivery. Its primary focus is on preventing defects rather than simply identifying them. Defining quality standards, implementing quality processes, reviewing, analyzing, and collaborating with stakeholders - these responsibilities come under quality assurance
Whereas, the primary objective of quality testing is to uncover existing defects through rigorous testing procedures. Basically, the process involves designing and executing test plans, employing various testing techniques, reporting and analyzing results, and collaborating with developers.
How Does QA Work?
The quality assurance process isn’t a single event, it is a continuous process woven into every stage of development, ensuring excellence throughout the product lifecycle.
Let’s take a look at those phases:
1. Planning and Requirements
QA sets the expectations for the entire project, defining what "good" means in terms of functionality, performance, usability, and security. This involves collaborating with stakeholders to understand their needs and priorities. Afterward, the project requirements are analyzed to check whether they are clear, complete, and measurable. The QA team develops a comprehensive test plan outlining the testing strategy, scope, and QA methods to be used in the project.
2. Development and Design
The experienced developers in the QA team review codes to identify potential bugs and ensure quality standards. They employ user testing with real users that help to identify UX issues. In this phase, they also conduct a security audit to identify the vulnerabilities and implement appropriate safeguards.
3. Testing and Inspection
This phase where a product is already designed and coded, is thoroughly tested. Developers test individual units of code to ensure they function as intended. They test how different components of the system work together. The QA team undertakes system testing, regression testing, performance testing, and security testing. The developers track and manage all identified bugs and issues, ensuring timely resolution and communication with stakeholders.
4. Deployment and Release
The quality assurance team develops a comprehensive release plan that outlines deployment procedures, rollback strategies, and communication protocols. They conduct pilot testing with a limited group of users before full release to identify any last-minute new issues. They continuously monitor system performance and user feedback after release to identify any emerging issues.
5. Continuous Improvement
As said earlier, quality assurance isn’t a one-day event, it is a continuous process that requires developers to learn from past experiences and get their eyes on the area of improvement. The QA team adapts and refines QA practices based on new technologies and best practices. To free up the time for more strategic activities, the team can automate repetitive tasks.
Types of QA Testing
QA testing is a crucial step in software development, ensuring the quality and functionality of the final product. Here’s a breakdown of two main categories of QA testing, along with some common types of each:
1. Functional Testing
The functional QA testing examines the software’s core functionality, ensuring it performs as intended. Functional software testing is work done to validate the software system against the functional specifications. It tests each software system function, providing appropriate input, and verifying the output against the functional requirements.
Functional testing is the set of following tests:
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- Unit Testing
The unit testing is done at the microseptic level, where the QA team tests every tiny beat of code, like individual functions. They break down the application code into component building blocks to test them. This is to make sure that the software system performs flawlessly.
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- Integration Testing
Integration testing is the second level of functional QA testing, done after unit testing. The integration testing process evaluates a system’s compliance with functional requirements. It verifies the interaction between unit-tested modules to check whether they work well when compiled together.
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- System Testing
System testing is the testing before wrap-up, a grand finale of testing your software. It is a technique that evaluates the end-to-end specifications of a fully integrated software product. Unlike unit or integration testing, which focuses on smaller parts, system testing checks how the complete software system works as a whole.
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- User Acceptance Testing
The finale is here, after unit, integration, and system testing, now it is time to check the software’s compatibility in real-time with real end users. This crucial phase verifies whether the software is fit for the intended purpose or not. In this stage, the users will get to experience the software's workings and give their feedback. User acceptance testing helps to address the users' concerns early on to ensure a smoother transition and higher user satisfaction.
2. Non-functional Testing
While functional testing makes sure your software does what it’s supposed to do, non-functional QA testing dives deeper, examining how well it actually does it. The Non-functional testing focuses on the wellness of software’s performance and quality attributes.
Non-functional testing is a blend of:
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- Security Testing
Security testing goes beyond functional testing and delves into safeguarding your software against malicious attacks and data breaches. Security testing involves identifying, analyzing, and resolving security weaknesses and vulnerabilities in software applications. It encompasses a range of techniques, including penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, security code review, and threat modeling.
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- Performance Testing
The term itself reflects the meaning, performance testing is a non-functional QA testing that ensures software applications perform properly under their expected workload. It includes evaluating the speed, responsiveness, and stability of a software system. However, it is not a one-time fix but an ongoing process that needs to be repeated as the software evolves and user needs change. There are various tools and methodologies available for performance testing to fix the issues before they impact real users.
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- Usability Testing
Usability testing is about observing your end users interact with the software system and how easy it is designed for them to use. It involves bringing in representative users from the target audience and watching them navigate your software system while completing specific tasks. By identifying usability issues early on, the created software happens to be more enjoyable for end users and leads to high conversion rates for your business objectives.
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- Compatibility Testing
Compatibility testing your software functions as intended across various platforms, browsers, devices, and configurations. It verifies whether the developed software system works well beyond its original environment or not. Compatibility testing expands the potential user base and avoids bus - making sure there are only a few frustrated users.
Quality Assurance Best Practices for Software Development
Developing a software system isn’t just about writing code, it’s a meticulous quality assurance process that ensures a smooth transition.
Here are the 8 best QA practices to follow for quality dedicated software:
1. Focus on Requirements
Clearly defined and documented requirements are the foundation for effective testing. Make sure all stakeholders are involved in defining the requirements and use traceability matrices to link requirements to test cases, ensuring all requirements are covered.
2. Establish a Robust Testing Strategy
Utilize a combination of testing methods like functional, non-functional, and exploratory testing to cover different aspects of software. You can also consider using different test environments to stimulate real-world conditions. Also, define clear entry and exit for each testing phase.
3. Automate Testing
This is one time-saving practice, you can automate repetitive tasks like regression testing to free up time for manual testing of complex scenarios. For that, you can choose the right automation tools based on your project needs and budget.
4. Perform Thorough Risk Assessments
The risk assessment practice helps you to identify potential risks and vulnerabilities early on in the development process. Prioritize testing based on the severity and likelihood of risks. Implement mitigation strategies to address the identified risks.
5. Involve QA Early
Integrate QA into the development process from the beginning. Encourage collaboration between developers and testers. Perform early and frequent testing to catch bugs early. Don’t wait for the developers to finish before testing, instead collaborate early to facilitate the improvements.
6. Prioritize Bug Fixing
Categorize bugs based on severity and impact to prioritize fixing critical issues first. Maintain a clear bug tracking system to ensure bugs are addressed and resolved effectively. To enhance the practice, keep stakeholders informed about bug fixes and progress to maintain transparency.
7. Monitor and Analyze Performance
Define performance expectations and metrics to track against. Utilize tools to monitor and analyze resource usage, response times, and other performance indicators. Continuously analyze performance data and identify areas of improvement.
8. Conduct User Acceptance Testing
Engage representative users to test the software in a real-world environment and identify usability issues. Collect feedback from users to improve the overall experience of the software. Address user concerns and feedback to ensure that software meets the needs.
A Quality Touch!
A swiftly done quality assurance process is a winning situation for any software and the fully experienced QA team of developers can only make it possible. Polyxer Systems helps to make that situation within reach. Our QA methods, processes, and philosophies are a perfect blend by our developers. We help businesses live their business ideas in software with the surety of quality. Give your software projects a quality touch with Polyxer Systems!
